


But the Horror of the Shade

by jesterlady



Series: The Shade Series [2]
Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Transformation, Big Bang Challenge, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Rewrite, Child In Danger, Community: het_bigbang, F/M, Ghosts, Marriage, Parent-Child Relationship, Prophecy, Season/Series 04, Sequel, Sieges, Vampires, Werewolves, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7882618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eve is the child of two werewolves, destined to become the War Child, foe to the Old Ones, but no one seems to be quite sure exactly what that means or what the vampires will do to prevent it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Knowmefirst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knowmefirst/gifts).
  * Inspired by [[Banner] But the Horror of the Shade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7882975) by [Knowmefirst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knowmefirst/pseuds/Knowmefirst). 



> Disclaimer: I don’t own Being Human. The title is by William Ernest Henley.
> 
> Written for the Het Big Bang 2016 Challenge.
> 
> Thank you so much to my last minute beta punch_kicker15 who absolutely saved my neck.

Nina opened the screen door and shielded her eyes against the sun throwing light on her face. It was still hard to see but she managed to make out the tiny figure of her daughter running circles between the house and the barn.

“Eve,” she called.

Eve looked over and turned the direction of her frantic pace toward the house while Nina walked out to meet her.

“Mummy, Mummy,” she said, “the piggys don’t eat good.”

Nina paused for a moment to translate that.

“You mean they’re messy, baby?” she asked.

“Messy all over,” said Eve, her voice the very tone of disapproval.

That would be her father coming out in her, or at least, that’s what Nina assumed, since it certainly didn’t come from her.

“Never mind the pigs,” said Nina, holding out her hand. “It’s time to come inside and get ready for dinner.”

“What we eat?” asked Eve, taking Nina’s hand.

“It’s your father’s turn to cook,” said Nina, “let’s go see.”

She rotated her neck as they walked, trying to work out the kinks. She’d pulled not quite a double shift, but almost, and had only just gotten out of the shower. Her wet hair felt good since England was having one of its horrible heatwaves and the old house they lived in had never even heard of air conditioning, let alone had anyone attempted to have it installed. It had hurriedly been moved to the top of Nina’s to-do list this past week.

Eve primly wiped her feet on the mat and entered the house and then ran into the kitchen.

George was busy at work flipping things and stirring others while the delicious smell of meat cooking floated through the air. He stopped his work though when he saw Eve, a smile taking over his face.

“How’s my little Evie?” he asked.

“Fine, thanks,” said Eve, putting her hands behind her back and beaming up at George, who naturally towered over her.

“You wash your hands, you can help me,” said George.

Eve nodded seriously and climbed up her special stool to reach the sink and began the very important task of cleanliness.

George watched her and then turned to Nina.

“How’s the wife doing?” he asked. “Big news from hospital?”

“Just that I’m getting too old for this,” she said, only half meaning it. His brow wrinkled and his worry lines started to appear. “Relax, George,” she said, moving closer so he could bend down and kiss her. “Everything’s fine. How was Eve today?”

“Good as gold,” said George. “She helped me feed the pigs.”

“I can’t believe Mitchell got you to feed the pigs,” said Nina wryly. “No, never mind, I can totally believe it.”

“It’s very sunny out,” said George defensively.

Nina just shook her head and went to help Eve dry her hands. Once she was finished with that task and saw her daughter safely ensconced, helping George, she went into the lounge and found Mitchell lying on the sofa with the shades drawn. There was an empty beer bottle on the floor next to him and he had a cap drawn over his eyes.

“Another late night for the brave?” she asked, walking through his legs up on the coffee table.

“I’ll have you know I’m not feeling very well,” he said, not even bothering to try and look up at her, though he did start to topple when she knocked his legs down.

“I can imagine,” she said, without sympathy. “I don’t know how you work those sixteen hour shifts at the hospital. Oh wait, that was me.”

Mitchell finally sat up and cocked one eye at her.

“Nina, Nina, Nina, whatever will I do with you?” he asked.

“Nothing, I certainly intend,” she said. “Come on, move your lazy arse. George has got food and I imagine Annie will be home soon.”

He appeared slightly more interested now that food and Annie were involved.

“I guess I could stomach something,” he said, stretching.

“Do you know where Tom is?” Nina asked.

“Another failed interview would be my guess,” said Mitchell. “The lad has no social skills whatsoever and it’s like he was raised by wolves.”

“Ha, ha,” said Nina. “I haven’t heard that one in the last five days.”

“Never hurts to break out the classics,” said Mitchell as they moved into the kitchen. “George, what are we eating?”

“Nothing for you,” said Eve. “Say please, Unca John.”

Mitchell squatted down and put his hands together, sticking out his lower lip.

“Please, Miss Eve, may I have some of your delicious smelling food?”

Eve tried to hold back a smile and Mitchell stuck his lip out even further if that was possible. Nina had to hold back a smile herself.

“Kay,” said Eve. “You set table.”

Mitchell gave her a serious nod and straightened up. Eve turned back to where she was watching George season the meat and Mitchell winked at Nina while pulling out the plates.

Nina, in the meantime, sat down by the counter and watched them working.

It was still slightly surreal to her that her daughter was now five years old. Time was moving so fast Nina couldn’t keep track of it. It was an old problem for a parent, she knew, but she was having a more difficult time than she’d imagined she would. She did love every moment of Eve though and when she wasn’t directly interacting with Eve herself, she loved to watch Eve interact with the rest of the family.

Eve with George was a very serious affair, they were very straightforward and earnest, with George treating her like a little adult and Eve practically bursting with pride as George gave her responsibility and tasks. George spoiled her horribly in the meantime, but at least he was trying to teach her things as well. Nina could only approve, especially when she saw how happy it made George when Eve learned new skills and how thrilled Eve was to learn them.

Mitchell, on the other hand, very much played the role of indulgent uncle, acting like, and indeed it mostly seemed the case, that Eve was the boss of him. Eve loved to order her ‘Unca John’ around and Mitchell teased her gently and did whatever she said. Nina only intervened when it became too ridiculous because she liked seeing the softer side of Mitchell and it was one of the only ways to get him to do anything unless Annie was involved.

Of course Annie showered Eve with attention and kisses and presents and was thankfully going to be there to teach Eve about the more girly aspects of womanhood which Nina did not want to handle. Eve loved her ‘Annie Annie’ and the two of them went on imaginative romps and told wild stories until bedtime almost every night.

Nina actually envied the relationship Eve had with Annie a little bit. It was natural and effortless whereas Nina felt like she had to work hard for every inch of her own relationship with Eve. It wasn’t Eve’s fault, certainly, it was Nina’s own natural fears and demons coming into play. She’d feared being a mother for so long that right after Eve was born Nina had practically thrust Eve into Annie’s arms and forced her to do all the mothering Nina was petrified to do.

It had taken a long time, some rather long arguments with George, pointed remarks from Mitchell, and watching Eve with Annie jealously before Nina had realized what she was doing and taken back her daughter, so to speak. The love had never been a problem, but her fear of hurting Eve and making a mistake was a paralyzing emotion and it still caught Nina by surprise sometimes. She’d made many strides since then, but she regretted overcompensating so much when Eve was a baby.

“Sorry to be late,” said Tom, entering the kitchen and knocking the dirt from his boots off mostly on the mat. Eve saw him and instantly held her hands up. “Time for a ride then?” he asked, picking her up and whirling her around, her shoe dangerously close to flying off and hitting someone in the head.

Tom, well, Tom was just a big older brother type, a bit rough around the edges, but he never tired of giving Eve piggyback rides and taking her around the farm and Nina had even caught Eve trying to whittle the other day, though she had quickly put a stop to that, because as admirable a skill as it was, Eve was far too young to be playing with any type of sharp item.

“Not in the kitchen, Tom,” squawked George. “The food!”

“Right,” said Tom, looking abashed, slowing down. “I better wash up then.”

“More,” pleaded Eve.

Tom looked helplessly at Nina; he was terrible at saying no to Eve.

“Not now, Eve,” said Nina. “Dinner first, you’re supposed to be helping your father.”

Eve already hated shirking responsibilities and she instantly turned back to George, adjusting her tiny apron with a well-practiced air.

Mitchell started laughing and Nina ignored him, turning to Tom.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

Tom pulled his puppy dog face, which was really just his normal face.

“Just nipped into town,” he said. “I wanted to see about working at that shop.”

“And?” Nina inquired.

Tom smiled.

“Think they might take me. Had a proper interview and everything.”

“That’s good,” said Nina, softening. 

She never wanted to be hard on Tom; he somehow always managed to look like the entire world was kicking him anyway. She’d been given a brief glimpse into how he’d been raised back when they’d first met. His father had been fairly harsh and obsessed with killing vampires. It hadn’t really given Tom the social skills he needed to survive in the human world even though he was very polite and had some rather quaint old fashioned ideas. Nina felt responsible for him and she couldn’t help being more motherly than not toward him. He wasn’t that much younger than she was, but he definitely inspired that feeling in her. 

They’d met Tom back when she’d been pregnant with Eve and they’d craved more information about werewolves than Mitchell could provide. They’d met McNair and his son Tom as well as several other werewolves living in Barry where the four of them had also been living. The little pack had welcomed George and Nina warmly though it had taken considerable diplomacy to keep McNair and Mitchell from killing each other. When the four of them had made plans to move back to England, Tom had begged to go with them and after a lot of finagling, McNair had agreed.

Tom had proven himself hard working and useful, if rather too prone to making homemade explosives and twitching whenever Mitchell came around him for the first couple of months. Either way, he was a part of their household and Nina was grateful for his help with Eve and his desire to contribute.

They needed all the help they could get since Nina and George both worked full time and Mitchell was a bit useless during the day and Annie was off running an empire.

They all sat down to the table and just as Nina put her first fork load into her mouth, Annie popped into the room.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s so rude of me coming late to dinner.” She sat down next to Mitchell and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I was down in Spain if you can believe it. Some bloke with a truly terrible moustache was refusing to get put on the wait list and so I had to step in when Ana just couldn’t cope with it. It just goes to show that people really don’t know-”

“Annie,” George interrupted. She stopped and looked at him.

“Yes, George?”

“Breathe for a bit, okay? The story, as fascinating as I know it will turn out to be, doesn’t have to come out all at once.”

“Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Annie, but she didn’t continue the story of her woes as an incredibly popular therapist and stretched her fingers across the table in a wave to Eve. “How’s my favorite little girl?”

“Hungry,” Eve said and tried to get some more food into her mouth, but managed to get half of it on the table.

Nina sighed, but wiped Eve off with a well-practiced air. Eve submitted to the indignity with grace and then dived back into her food.

They continued to eat, dinner going much the same as it usually did. By now everyone was used to Annie watching them all eat and occasionally placing her hand to Mitchell’s head to taste what he was eating, but it was still an odd sight for Nina. Annie whisked all the food things away almost as soon as everyone finished eating and Nina didn’t have to look to know that the dishes were washing themselves. Ghosts were odd housemates, but relatively useful ones, she often reflected.

“What time is it?” asked George after everyone had finally finished. “Is it time for a little girl’s bedtime?”

Eve started to put on her pouty face but Tom intervened. 

“It’s only past seven,” he said. “Gotta check the animals, yeah?”

Eve then began wriggling in her seat from excitement.

“Go on and take her, Tom,” Nina said. “Just make sure she’s back and ready for bed before eight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tom, swooping Eve into his arms and carrying her outside.

Nina watched them go with a fond look and then turned back to the rest.

“Shall we all have a house meeting?” Mitchell said casually, too casually, Nina thought. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“You going to try and get out of washing up again?” asked George, who also appeared to be suspicious of Mitchell’s innocent sounding words.

“Don’t be daft,” said Mitchell, “though if you wanted to volunteer…” he trailed off when Annie poked him in the ribs.

“Right, let’s have it then,” said Nina, standing up and making her way into the lounge. “Might as well be comfortable.”

Annie and Mitchell sat on the couch while George and Nina settled into the oversized arm chair that somehow just managed to fit the two of them, even if Nina had to overlap George a little bit. She never minded and it was her favorite way to spend time in the lounge by far.

“What’s going on, Mitchell?” asked Annie.

“I got a message from Carl today,” Mitchell said, almost reluctantly, as if he still couldn’t quite bring himself to share problems instead of solve them all on his own.

It would always be a struggle for him, Nina knew, but she had to grudgingly admit, he didn’t keep secrets now, at least, not that she could tell.

“And?” she prompted.

“It was a bit odd, even for Carl,” said Mitchell. He pulled out his phone and began reading. “Old friends can be so tricky, can’t they? You never know what they know about you and whether they’ll keep the embarrassing bits under wraps. I’m thinking about moving to avoid such situations. I wanted to let you know you might not hear from me till I settle in. Wishing you health and safety, remember all your lessons.”

Nina could see why Mitchell was confused. A more tangled bit of mumbo jumbo she’d never heard.

“Do you have any idea what it means?” asked George. “It sounds like he’s trying to warn you about something.”

“Yeah,” said Mitchell, shifting uncomfortably. “I think he’s on the run and wanted to warn me who was after him.”

“And…who is?” asked Annie, practically perched on Mitchell’s lap she was leaning so far towards him.

“The Old Ones,” said Mitchell.

Despite her many years living with Mitchell, the name didn’t mean much to Nina. Mitchell didn’t talk about vampire stuff unless it pertained to whatever was happening. She’d heard him say the term once or twice and had the vague impression they were the eldest living vampires, but that was about it.

“And we’re worried?” asked George. “We are, aren’t we? We’re petrified. Bloody hell, why do we have to be petrified?”

“Because the Old Ones are smart and influential and when they take notice of you, it’s never for a good reason,” said Mitchell. “Other than my…lifestyle choices, the only reason they’d be interested in me that Carl might warn-”

“Eve,” Nina breathed, sudden terror flooding her.

“I don’t know that for sure, Nina,” Mitchell said.

“But that’s your suspicion and, unfortunately, that’s good enough for me,” said Nina.

“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or offended,” said Mitchell.

“With you two it’s usually both,” mumbled George.

“Let’s keep on track, shall we?” said Annie. “Mitchell, is that everything?”

“Literally, the whole kit and whatever the rest of that saying is,” said Mitchell.

George had started twitching beneath Nina and she knew he was going to say something panicky so she interfered.

“We don’t know anything for sure,” she said. “So, we’ll keep Eve safe and inside and be very underneath the radar.”

“My baby girl,” said George under his breath and Nina put her hand on his.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to our Eve,” Mitchell said firmly, leaning forward and staring at them intensely. “No matter what happens.”

“Somehow that worries me,” said Nina.

Mitchell rolled his eyes and stood up, giving Annie his hand.

“Come on, love, let’s leave them to it.”

“Leave them to what?” Annie asked and then nodded as the thought caught up to her. “Right, that. Okay, yes, we’ll, we’ll just go on then and leave you…to…that.”

***

George watched Mitchell and Annie leave the room and tried to calm his breathing. He wasn’t panicking so much as suddenly very angry and whenever that happened, well, the best way to describe it was his inner wolf gaining control.

“You have the nicest friends,” Nina said.

George knew how she meant it, but it opened up old fears inside him and he didn’t want to revert back to the way things had been.

“Don’t start that again,” he said. “They’re your friends.”

“I know they are,” she said. “I’m just trying to distract you from all the panicking you’re doing.”

“Eve is our daughter,” he said, “and it’s our job to keep her safe. We’re the ones who brought her into this world, you know.”

“I was there,” said Nina dryly. “For both the pleasurable and the not so pleasurable bits. The only one party to both, I might add.”

“But we don’t really know anything about her,” said George, resisting the urge to stand up, dumping Nina to the ground, and start to pace. “I mean, we just let it go after she was born, but we should have been more prepared, should have done more research.”

“We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves,” said Nina. “We still don’t.”

“And if the attention is already drawn to us, what then?” asked George.

“Then we fight it,” said Nina, “and I will personally tear apart anything that tries to touch her.”

George stopped thinking so hard and turned to look at his wife. She was wearing her customary fierce expression, but he knew that within that look was a nurturing nature that could comfort the whole world. She’d loved Eve intensely from the moment of birth despite her crippling fears about becoming a mother and, when she thought no one was looking, she was incredibly tender. Yet that never stopped her from being strong and dangerous and if you coupled that fact with her status of werewolf, she was a formidable opponent. He was glad she loved him.

“I can get on board with that,” he said, after he’d stopping drinking in how much he loved her.

She half-smiled and kissed his cheek.

“You are funny, you know that, George?”

“I’m being serious,” he protested.

“I know,” she said. “But you choose the oddest moments to get romantic.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “You’re my wife and I’m proud of you.”

“I know that, too,” she said. “Luckily you’re good at showing it.”

He smiled, pleased to hear it. There had been a time when he he’d thought he’d never be able to be close to anyone ever again. Nina had changed all of that even with all the ups and downs their relationship had brought both of them. He still regretted causing her the pain of becoming a werewolf, but on a more selfish line, he was infinitely grateful it had happened.

“I am happy with you,” he said. “Our life. We have a wonderful little girl.”

“I will agree,” she said. “She’s kind and smart.”

George smiled, but he soon lost the look as his thoughts went another bent.

“Do you think she’s got crazy powers she’ll develop or do something to change the world?”

“I would hope anyone could change the world,” Nina said.

“You know what I mean,” said George. “Is she some child of prophecy?”

“She’s never exhibited any signs of being anything other than a normal girl,” said Nina. “She doesn’t change at the moon like you or I, she throws a tantrum if her meat is too rare, she’s very good natured most of the time, no pent up rage that I can see.”

“But that might not mean anything,” said George. “We live in a world of monsters.”

“Our daughter will never be a monster,” Nina said fiercely. “I won’t let it happen.”

George nodded, feeling comforted by her confidence. 

“You’re right, she’s always been normal.”

“Normal and ours,” said Nina. “Our only child.”

Her voice caught slightly on the word only and George winced a little. He didn’t like to be reminded of it either, but Eve would never have little brothers or sisters. When Nina had been pregnant with Eve there had been an incident with a vampire and she’d been stabbed and then had transformed into her wolf self. Miraculously, both she and the baby had survived, maybe because of something Annie had done, George still didn’t know. They had only gotten pregnant in the first place because they had slept together as werewolves. They were careful to transform separately after that, but there had been a night when that wasn’t possible and George could remember with blushes the things that had happened between them that night.

They’d anxiously been prepared for another surprise pregnancy at that point, but it had never happened. When that had happened several times, they’d gone to the doctor and the test results had shown that there was permanent damage from the knife wound.

It wasn’t conclusive, the doctor hadn’t been able to say anything for sure, but it had been years now and there were times they never used any kind of birth control. There were no other babies and even though everyone agreed that was probably a good thing since the children of werewolves didn’t tend to survive, there was a tint of bitterness to the knowledge. George felt largely responsible for it since he had brought Nina into their world and they had been technically separated at the time of her attack due to his actions. Still, there was nothing either of them could do about it and in the end, every time George looked at his precious Eve and thought about how much he’d like another one just like her, he reminded himself that any other children they had would be subject to the same fears they harbored for Eve.

Those fears had eased over the years as she never exhibited signs of any kind of supernatural tendencies, but at times like this, when the reminder of the old days popped up, they sprang to life inside George and he had never been great at keeping his cool.

“Should we do anything then?” he asked. “To prepare?”

“We don’t know enough yet,” said Nina. “I don’t want to make noise and be seen by the wrong people. Let’s just remain quiet and go about our lives as usual. But I don’t want Eve left alone.”

“Agreed,” said George.

Nina shifted in their seat and laid her head on George’s shoulder.

“That was a pretty good run of normalcy,” she said. “I thought it was going to last.”

“It might yet,” said George, hoping more than believing that to be true.


	2. Chapter 2

Nina was relieved to find that, despite Mitchell’s potential bombshell, life continued on as it had been for the next few weeks. There weren’t any more messages and no one had seen any lurking bad guys in alley ways and no one had shown up dead in the hospital morgue with a torn neck. All plus signs there. So Nina allowed herself to relax a little bit more than she had been. After all, she was attempting to not be so high strung about the supernatural. She’d never made peace with her wolf like George had, especially since Eve had been born. There was just too much about it that she couldn’t control and she knew what her wolf was capable of.

Eve slammed against the screen door, breaking Nina’s concentration.

“Eve Anne Sands-Pickering,” she scolded, “what are you doing?”

“Unca T is coming!” Eve said in a high pitched voice and for a second Nina thought something was horribly wrong and Tom had transformed and was chasing Eve.

She quickly realized that wasn’t the case when Tom in his human shape came galloping up to the door and snatched Eve from behind.

“Got you,” he said. “Hunter wins.”

“No fair, no fair,” said Eve, obviously loving every second of it.

Nina couldn’t help smiling even as she shuddered to think of the damage the two must have done to the barn in their game.

“Can’t do nothing about it,” said Tom, giving her a raspberry on the side of her neck.

“I ‘scape,” said Eve, trying to be defiant through her laughter. 

She twisted around and play bit at Tom’s hand holding her waist. At the same time Tom adjusted his grip and Eve’s teeth bit down hard into his skin.

He didn’t say anything, just grimaced, and set her down carefully.

“Tom?” asked Nina, only guessing at what happened from her limited view.

“I sorry, I sorry,” said Eve, starting to cry. “Unca T, you need plasta.”

“I’m right and rough, Eve,” said Tom, picking Eve up again and heading inside, stomping excess mud off his shoes.

Nina accepted Eve when Tom handed her over and watched him rummage through the cupboards before he found some cotton and swabbed his hand with it.

“Are you okay, Tom?” asked Nina.

“Sure,” said Tom. “Nobbut but a nick in the skin. Little biter, that one.” He grinned at Eve as he said it and she slowly stopped crying.

“It’s okay, baby,” said Nina. “Tom knows you didn’t mean it.”

“Sure I do,” said Tom. “Stopped bleeding and everything, see?”

He showed Eve his hand and when she saw it, she brightened up. Nina couldn’t help but think about all the germs that were now floating around her baby’s mouth, but she didn’t say anything.

“It’s time you two stopped rough housing anyway,” said Nina. “I’ve got to get off to my shift and George should be home any minute.”

“I got the job,” said Tom, blurting it out as if he’d been practicing.

“That’s wonderful,” said Nina, beaming at him.

Tom shrugged, as if unused to having people be happy around him. Considering he’d been living with Annie for the last five years, Nina was surprised that hadn’t been coddled out of him yet. Some habits were hard to break, she supposed.

“Nothing special, but I can pitch in a bit now.”

“We appreciate everything you do, Tom,” said Nina, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Truly.”

He shrugged again and turned to go.

“I start tomorrow morning so I’ll do my rounds early.”

Nina stared after him, shaking her head. Tom not only took care of a fair amount of the farm work but he also patrolled nightly, a habit McNair had hammered into him and Tom had steadfastly refused to let go of. He more than contributed around the place. 

“Blessed babies, both of them,” she muttered and went upstairs to finish getting ready for work.

***

George straightened up and reached overhead to fasten the latch above the door, grumbling as he did so. The door and he were old enemies and he often cursed the maker of the door, wondering why the latch had to be so high and so difficult.

“It’s a bloody good thing I’m tall,” he said.

Tom didn’t say anything, but George caught the side of his lip turning up and considered it a win. Tom could be hard to reach but George liked to think he’d made progress in doing so.

“You and Nina transforming together tonight?” Tom asked.

George shook his head.

“Your work is complete, my friend,” he said. “The divider gate in the cellar is strong enough. Me and Nina’ll go there tonight and if the worst happens then we’ll be the ones stuck together. Basement is all yours.”

“Sounds fair,” said Tom.

They headed into the house and George took a moment of satisfaction over the precautions they’d built into their home. It wasn’t the same as the vast werewolf compound McNair had built in Barry, but it was safe and theirs and had room enough for the three werewolves who lived there since Eve had shown no signs of ever transforming. They still had Annie watch her on transformation night so, just in case, Annie could quickly rent-a-ghost her somewhere safe, but after five years they’d stopped believing it would happen. 

No, the house was pretty much perfect with the basement being an apt werewolf enclosure and, after a lot of hard labor, the storm cellar in the barn made into two separate cells, with a strong gate in the middle. They were far enough from the town that if one of them ever did get out, it wasn’t likely they’d run across anyone. They had a stock of tranquilizer darts for those occasions. Doping the wolves had never been a good long term solution, but for a quick stop to a killing spree, they were the best idea Mitchell had ever had.

The house was, of course, naturally fitted to its other supernatural inhabitants. Annie’s tiny room was mostly given over to an office space for her business. She still didn’t really sleep and when she was doing anything domestic, it was either with Mitchell in his room or in the kitchen. Mitchell’s room was naturally incredibly dark most of the time but that seemed to suit both of them just fine and that was about as far as George wanted to go when it came to thinking about Mitchell and Annie together. Their relationship thrilled him to no end but he didn’t need to know any of the details. At all.

The only other thing the house could use was some air conditioning about now. He wiped the sweat from his brow before washing his hands and sitting down at the table.

Annie shoveled some pie on George’s plate while he was thinking and watched him eat it.

“Just the right touch before you transform, right?” she asked. “I’ve been practicing.”

“You’re the only person I know who tries to find the right food for someone before they turn into a killer werewolf,” he said, inhaling it anyway.

Transformation nights did seem to make him hungrier and if he was already full it was more likely his wolf wouldn’t want to eat anything. He and his wolf understood each other fairly well these days and George remembered most of what happened each time he transformed now, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious when one false step could cause someone’s death.

“I can see how much you disapprove by the way you’re shoving it in your face,” she said, watching him and Tom, who never stopped to mince words over good food.

“Where’s Nina?” asked George in between bites.

“I just put Eve to bed,” said Nina, coming into the room with Mitchell. “After Uncle John read her a bedtime story.”

“Really?” Annie asked, clasping her hands together as if it wasn’t the eight hundredth time Mitchell had done so.

“I’m not going to dignify any of this,” said Mitchell, snagging a piece of pie and eating it more delicately than anybody had a right to eat pie, apparently to prove some kind of point, though George wasn’t sure what.

George had to sigh with satisfaction when he was done and reached over to snag some crumbs off of Tom’s plate. Tom slapped at his hand, playfully, but rather more forcefully than George would have liked. The plaster on Tom’s hand started unraveling as he lifted it.

“Good job, innit?” said Tom, a little weary in voice.

George furrowed his brow. 

“Don’t be a baby, Tom; what’d you need a great big plaster like that for anyhow?”

“Eve’s got some chompers on her,” Tom said absently, rewinding the bandage.

“I’m sure she does,” George said, laughing.

Across the table Mitchell froze and then looked up.

“What did you say?”

“I’m sure she does,” said George enunciating clearly so his apparently deaf vampire friend could understand what was happening around him.

“Eve bit you?” asked Mitchell, shooting George a look.

“Yeah, so?” said Tom.

“Eve,” Mitchell repeated.

“I like our daughter’s name as well,” said Nina, “but you don’t have to keep on repeating it. What’s the matter, Mitchell?”

“It’s not like Tom’s not already a werewolf,” said Annie jokingly. “Even if Eve was one herself, which she’s clearly not.”

“No, she’s not a werewolf,” agreed Mitchell. “But we don’t know what she is and biting people is probably not a good way to find out. The prophecy is pretty specific about her biting people.”

“But vague about everything else,” said George.

“It was days ago,” said Tom. “I’m fine.”

“But you haven’t transformed since then,” said Mitchell.

George felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up and he turned to look at Tom along with Annie and Nina. Tom was clearly uncomfortable with all the staring and looked bewildered.

“What’s all the fuss?” he said. “I know Eve was supposed to be some werewolf savior or somewhat, but she’s not, she’s just Eve. Nothing happened to me.”

“I’m sure you’re just dandy,” said Annie, hopping into action and rent-a-ghosting around the table to put her hands on Tom’s shoulders. “You’re right that Eve’s always been normal and certainly we haven’t had any indication other- oh, what if the vampires knew?” she finished, turning to them with a panicked expression.

“Annie, love, no, you’ll start George off,” said Mitchell.

“What?” squawked George indignantly. “I’m not some fly off the handle idiot, Mitchell.”

“No, you’re calm and collected always,” said Mitchell.

“You’re all flying off the handle,” said Nina. “Don’t forget you started this, Mitchell.”

“I had a legitimate concern and now they’re flapping about like chickens,” said Mitchell.

“Then handle it like an adult,” said Nina.

“I’m older than all of you,” he said.

“And permanently barely an adult,” George reminded him.

“This is not the time for that,” said Annie. “What if something happens to Tom?”

“I’m fine,” said Tom. “Look, I’ll transform and Annie can pop in and make sure I haven’t exploded or nothing, right?”

“He’s right,” said Nina. “We have no evidence anything else will happen. We just need to wait and see.”

“I hate waiting,” Mitchell and George both said.

Nina shook her head and Annie smiled.

“It’s almost time,” said Tom. “I’m going to the cellar now if you’re all done being strange.”

“Go on, Tom,” said Nina. 

George watched him go with narrowed eyes but certainly to the naked eye there was nothing different about him and hadn’t been since he was bitten. George was forced to come to the conclusion that he’d been a bit silly, but then, anything to do with vampires or Eve’s potential prophetic status and he went a bit wonky.

“I believe our turn is next,” he said, forcing himself to sound more cheerful than he felt. “Shall we?” he said, offering his hand to Nina.

“You know all the best places,” she said wryly and took his hand.

“I’ll take care of Eve,” said Annie, waving after them as if they were going on holiday and not to have all the bones in their body broken in a painfully agonizing way. “Don’t worry about a thing. Be safe.”

George rolled his eyes as he and Nina walked outside and he had to wrestle with the door again before they found themselves on opposite sides of the gate staring at each other through bars, completely naked. George could feel the moon inching its way up the sky like a hot trail of fire up his back and he didn’t try to fight it. Not anymore.

He didn’t welcome the pain, it was actually still a terrifying thought and horribly suspenseful, waiting for it to come; but, the time spent as a wolf, releasing any kind of pent up aggression or emotion, was incredibly freeing.

George was a werewolf and he actually liked being one. How was that for a plot twist?


	3. Chapter 3

Nina put the patient chart back into its slot and bid Mrs. Carmichael goodbye. She walked to the nurse’s station and made a few notes before clocking out. Today had been one of those rare days when she didn’t want to bite someone’s head off for abnormal stupidity. She’d take it. Last night’s transformation had been particularly stressful for some reason, she could only fathom it was because of Mitchell’s fear regarding Eve biting Tom.

Tom hadn’t appeared to be anything other than himself this morning and Annie said she hadn’t noticed anything off the few times she’d popped into the basement to check on him. Tom was rather adept at adjusting from transformation, however; he had been a werewolf a lot longer than she or George, having been bitten as a child. Nina didn’t like thinking about it because even the idea of a child having to go through what she went through was too much. She’d been relieved to tears on Eve’s first full moon when nothing happened and each subsequent full moon after that was an even stronger feeling of relief.

Tom had been up and dressed by the time she and George had gotten back to the house and was eating breakfast like nothing had happened. There was nothing unusual about the bite marks on his hand and he hadn’t reapplied his bandage. Nina was hopeful that meant Mitchell’s fears were groundless but she wasn’t discounting the possibility, not yet. The supernatural had fooled her too many times.

She went downstairs and stepped outside into the shadows just past sunset, the old urge to have a fag reasserting itself as it seemed to do whenever she passed the smoker’s area. Her last cigarette had been over five years before, but there was something about a group of people smoking that made her want one again. Mitchell smoked at the house all the time and it never bothered her, yet here it did.

She did spy Mitchell leaning against the building under a streetlamp and talking to some people she’d never seen before. She stopped for a moment and watched them, something niggling at her. They definitely didn’t work at the hospital and it was an odd group of people. A couple of elderly men, a twenty something looking man, a little girl, and an older woman. They were all different races and their clothing looked expensive. 

Mitchell hadn’t noticed Nina and he seemed to be arguing with one of the men. Suddenly he smiled and laughed, clapping his hand on the younger man’s back. The older man smiled and put a fatherly hand on Mitchell’s shoulder, but the smile was quickly lost as the man appeared to push Mitchell to his knees and spoke a few words.

Mitchell looked shaken and Nina wasn’t sure if she should interfere or not. There was something about the group that made her leery yet angry. 

As Nina watched the little girl glanced over and stared at her, making Nina feel rather peculiar. Nina was just about to go over there, feelings or no feelings, when Mitchell got up and walked away, toward Nina.

“What on earth-” she began when he got within earshot, but he shook his head at her.

“Not now,” he said. “Meet me around the lorry entrance in ten minutes.”

He walked straight past her and Nina stayed where she was, half torn between tearing after him and interrogating the people he’d been talking to. She stole a glance and they were all gone, all but the girl, who was still staring at Nina. Nina shuddered and went back inside the hospital, trying not to walk too fast, but anxious to get out of the girl’s eyesight.

Once inside she felt better, like she was herself again. She was still rattled and ended up going upstairs, telling Laura and Rosario goodbye for the second time and then going out the back way.

Mitchell was waiting for her, his leather coat on over his scrubs, smoking nervously. She wondered how he could bear wearing the coat in this heat.

Nina stopped in front of him and put her hand on her hip expectantly.

“You got the car?” he asked. She nodded and still waited. “Let’s go,” he said.

Nina was afraid simply because Mitchell was acting like a skittish colt.

The car was parked halfway down the street and they got into it in silence before Mitchell pulled out and she was about to start a tirade when Mitchell put up his hand to stop her.

“Give me five minutes until we’re near the edge of town, Nina,” he said.

Nina wasn’t used to Mitchell asking for things so she did as he asked. He drove recklessly, taking an unnecessarily long and winding route to get them home, backtracking several times. It was obvious he thought the people were following him and that told Nina everything anyway.

Mitchell finally slowed down once they got to the city limits and then took a deep breath.

“The Old Ones are in town.”

“I got that much,” said Nina. “Is that little girl an Old One?”

“Hetty,” Mitchell said, nodding. “Very old, very respected.”

“She’s a child,” Nina said, even though she knew that it didn’t matter how old you were when you were turned. Mitchell simply nodded. “What did they want?” Nina asked, since that was the important question.

“They, they want Eve,” said Mitchell.

A spike of terror pricked Nina’s heart even though she’d known that was what the answer was going to be.

“And?” she asked, her voice deceptively calm.

“I told them to go to hell,” said Mitchell. “But they won’t stop.”

Nina nodded, her mind already swimming with ideas, trying to figure out how she could possibly keep Eve safe. She was having difficulty.

“What are we going to do?” she finally asked, because when push came to shove, she usually deferred to Mitchell in situations like this now. 

He didn’t say anything for a minute and she wondered if he was struggling to think of something or going to lie to her like he used to.

“I don’t know,” he finally replied, which was the worst answer of all.

***

“They want what?” George asked, aware that his voice had reached octaves known only to dogs.

After such a quiet few weeks, the knowledge that the Old Ones were in town and wanted Eve was almost as surprising as him hearing about it for the first time.

“George, try to calm down,” said Mitchell.

“No,” George said, smacking his hand on the table. “Mitchell, this is my little girl we’re talking about and I’ll be as bloody panicky as I like.”

“Do you want to help Eve or not?” asked Nina.

“Of course I do,” George snapped and felt guilty about it, but also didn’t bother to apologize.

“They’re just vampires, yeah?” said Tom, looking from one person to another. “We just kill ‘em and it’s fine.”

“Tom, no offense to the warfare you learned from your dad,” said Mitchell, “but these vampires have survived for hundreds of years and they’re a little bit harder to kill than your ordinary vampire.”

“I still say they can die as easily,” said Tom.

Mitchell looked like he wanted to argue the point some more, but George didn’t think that would be profitable.

“What did they say, Mitchell?” he asked.

“They said that they’d heard I was still friends with you and wanted to know if I could introduce you and pave the way for negotiations.”

“Negotiations?” asked Annie. “What would that even mean? They just want Eve, right?”

“But vampires are old fashioned blowhards,” said Nina.

“It’s true, we are.” Mitchell nodded. “They will make reparations for the loss of your child,” he said, obviously trying to sound more posh.

“Sod their reparations,” said Nina. “Was that it?”

“Pretty much. After I said no, they said they’d ask again in a few days and that would be my last shot.”

“I know I shouldn’t ask, but did they specify the last shot of what?” asked Annie.

“Of doing this the easy way,” said Mitchell.

George closed his eyes and tried to picture a blazing sunshine on a white beach, a place vampires would despise. He would take Nina and Eve and they would go there. If Mitchell and Annie and Tom wanted to tag along, they could. Mitchell could just wear a big hat all the time. It would be funny, George liked the idea.

“Then we need to leave,” he said. “There’s islands in the Caribbean, let’s go.”

“You don’t understand, George,” said Mitchell, waving his hand for emphasis. “You can’t run from them, they’re not ordinary vampires. They will hunt you down forever once you’re their prey. If they can’t follow you themselves they have humans in their employ who can and will. There’s no running, mate,” he finished in a softer tone. “Not long term anyhow.”

“What other options do we have?” asked Annie, linking her arm through Mitchell’s.

“This isn’t your problem,” Nina said, her voice strained. “So if you need to…”

“As if I’m going anywhere while my niece is in danger,” said Annie. “Nina, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Someone once told me I couldn’t live without help,” said Mitchell. “Sound like anyone you know?”

“I like to kill vampires,” Tom said, with a shrug.

George had to laugh, but he felt very touched even though he’d known exactly what each of them would say. They’d been friends and lived together for too long. They were a family.

Nina nodded, not looking surprised either.

“I’m grateful,” she said, “but we still need to decide how to handle this.”

Mitchell paused for a moment and then spoke hesitantly.

“I say I meet with them.”

“And tell them what exactly?” George asked. “Yes, you can have the child, just leave everyone else alone? No, you can’t have the child, now come and kill us all?”

“Knowledge is power,” said Mitchell. “If I don’t know more about what their plans are, what they want Eve for; I can’t come up with a proper strategy.”

Nina shuddered and drew a deep breath.

“You all know how I hate admitting it, but I agree with him.”

“Sometimes I think you two always agree,” said George slightly under his breath. 

It was true, too, because Nina and Mitchell fought like hell sometimes, but they almost always came to the same conclusions. It was a bit condescending how they looked at him and Annie sometimes like they were children who needed corralling. Still George would rather have it that way than have to live without either of them.

“That sounds solid to me,” said Annie. “I mean, I’ll stay here with Eve obviously and make sure I can get her to safety as needed.”

“I’m staying with you as well,” said Nina. She looked at Annie and smiled. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Annie, and there’s nobody better for a fast exit, but I don’t want to leave her side.”

“But I’m going,” said George, determination in every syllable. If Mitchell thought he could handle this without at least one of Eve’s parents, he was dreaming. “I have a right to be there, Mitchell, don’t argue.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Mitchell said. “She’s your kid, I’m just the interpreter.”

George slumped a little, somehow the knowledge he would go up against the vampires with Mitchell at his side was as reassuring as the old days when he’d thought Mitchell could protect him from anything. 

“I’ll stay here?” Tom asked like a question, looking back and forth between them all like a kid unsure where he was supposed to be.

“Sure,” said Annie.

“We don’t even know when this will be, do we?” asked Nina.

“They’ll get in touch with me,” said Mitchell, nodding slowly. “They have their ways, probably at the hospital.”

“Eve does not leave this house from now until this is over,” Nina said firmly.

“They’ll have watched us first,” said Mitchell. “I tried not to give them too obvious a road back to the house or let on who you all are, but if I know them, they knew all that before they came.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Annie.

“I mean, nobody else should really go anywhere alone,” said Mitchell. “People alone are easy prey. Being leverage against the rest of us would not be good.”

George hadn’t really thought about that, but it made perfect sense. Great, now he had to worry about everyone else just as much as Eve. He was getting sick and tired of the vampires messing up the perfect, very non-threatening life they’d built for themselves.

“Bollocks,” he said succinctly.

***

A crack of thunder sounded throughout the house. The intense summer heat had finally culminated in a storm, rain pouring down in the muggy air. Nina busied herself in the laundry, the type of task that could keep her from going mad. Annie usually raced everybody to all the chores in the house. How she did that and also managed a thriving business could probably only be explained by the fact that she didn’t sleep. But today Nina wanted to do something with her hands. There was a lot to think about and she would go mad if she just sat and thought.

White and darks and whites and darks. There was George’s favorite shirt, one of a seemingly endless amount of pairs of Mitchell’s fingerless gloves, several of Tom’s undershirts, and Eve’s yellow sundress. She’d worn it on a picnic they’d been on and got jelly down the front. She’d cried and cried because she both hated messes and loved the dress. Nina had forgotten to put it in the wash and she wondered if it was ruined now, she’d have to ask Annie. For the moment she held it and stared at it, the symbol of a little girl in danger, and she didn’t know whether to be angry or cry.

Tom solved her quandary for her by coming into the room and meandering around too casually, picking up something here and there, and then giving her sidelong glances.

“What’s the matter, Tom?” Nina said, actually grateful for the distraction.

“Nothing really,” he said, acting like he was looking for a pair of his denims.

Nina watched him out of the corner of her eye for a moment.

“You’re shaking,” she said once she realized it.

“Am I?” he asked, looking at his hand. “Naw, just a spasm.”

“You are shaking,” she said, turning and giving him a once over. “You know it, too.”

He looked sheepish and finally nodded.

“I don’t feel too well, honestly.”

Nina automatically went into diagnosis mode and asked him all the normal questions she’d ask any of her patients. His answers weren’t illuminating or encouraging.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Bit odd,” he said. “Hot and then cold. My bones are aching fierce. I can…smell things, see things. Like when…when I’m a wolf.”

She put her hand on his forehead and he did feel like he had a temperature. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions but she reached for the hand Eve had bit and he pulled it out of her grasp.

“Whatever’s happening will come out eventually,” she said, feeling sorry for him. “Let me help you.”

Tom looked at her for a minute and then slowly put his hand back in hers. Nina held it up to the light and couldn’t speak.

The bite mark of Eve’s, though it had never been deep, was white and deep like the scars they all bore from their initial meeting with a werewolf.

“I guess summat did happen,” said Tom.

Nina had the odd desire to laugh.

“I think so,” she said. “We’d better tell the others.” 

“Do we have to?” he asked.

Nina paused and studied him for a moment. He never did like being the center of attention, but he was clearly very uncomfortable.

“Why wouldn’t you want to, Tom?” she asked, trying to be gentle.

“They’ll make a big fuss,” he said. “I don’t want nothing to happen.” He stopped and then asked in a low voice. “What will happen to me?”

Nina sat down and pulled him along with her. As if she had the answers to that question.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “You think I would let anything happen to you?”

“We don’t always get a choice,” Tom said, shrugging.

“You’re right,” said Nina, thinking back to the many things that had happened to her that were out of anyone’s control. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for it to happen.” That earned her a small smile and she continued on after a sudden thought came to her. “I don’t know Eve’s destiny, not really. But she was made by werewolves to hurt vampires. How could her bite to another werewolf be bad? If anything, something wonderful could happen to you.”

Tom looked hopeful at that.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. 

“Neither did I till just now,” said Nina.

“Sure glad you did,” he said.

“Me too,” she said.

An explosion of sound entered the room in the form of an excited Eve who wanted to go out and play.

With some relief, Nina wouldn’t be able to let her go outside, because of the storm if nothing else.

“You hear that?” Tom said, pointing upwards.

“Baby, there’s a storm,” said Nina. “You don’t want to get all wet, right?”

Eve solemnly shook her head, she hated getting wet, bath time especially.

“We’ll play inside,” said Tom.

“I get Daddy and Unca John,” said Eve, clapping her hands and running out of the room again.

Nina watched her go, swelling a little with the emotion inside of her, both the love and the worry.

“No, nothing bad could come from that,” she said silently to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

George tried to concentrate on the paper he was grading, but the words kept blurring back and forth in front of his eyes. He took off his glasses and rubbed at them in a futile attempt to fix the matter. His eyes were just fine and the paper wasn’t too boring either. Suzie was one of his best students and always managed to bring something fascinating to her papers, but today he just wasn’t able to concentrate.

He put his glasses back on and focused on Mitchell sitting on the other side of the room, tapping a pen loudly against his chair while he concentrated on his cross word puzzle. Many things had changed over the years, but not Mitchell’s ability to be completely annoying when he was anxious about something.

George had mostly learned to tune him out though. Today it was a lot more difficult since George himself felt like ripping the chair he was sitting on to shreds.

He put Suzie’s paper on the top of the stack and stretched back, closing his eyes for a moment and letting his thoughts wander.

They were in his office at the school and George had way too many papers to grade to be slacking off. Even though it was the summer holidays, George was in charge of practically every special program run during the summer and he was just as busy as during the school year. He and Nina had been discussing him demanding a little more leniency from the school, especially with Eve getting older and everyone else in the house working such odd hours.

“If you’re falling asleep, we should go home,” said Mitchell, startling George out of his thoughts and he flinched with fright.

“Would you mind not doing that!” he shrieked a little too loudly.

“What?” asked Mitchell. “Just wanted your attention. If you’re not working, let’s go home, I’m getting bored.”

“No one asked you to come,” George muttered, grabbing Suzie’s paper again and preparing to give it another go.

That wasn’t strictly true, they’d all decided that nobody should go anywhere alone and so Mitchell was accompanying George to school. Nina had decided she was taking an immediate leave of absence, but any semblance of keeping their lives intact after this was over demanded George keep up appearances.

He was a bit annoyed at that, really. Sometimes it felt like all he did was keep up appearances and act like he wasn’t completely on edge.

“Cheer up, George,” said Mitchell, grinning at him with too much worry behind his eyes. “We don’t spend much one on one time together anymore, this is good for us.”

“Mitchell, we live together,” said George, once more finding himself rubbing his eyes. “I see you every day, sometimes multiple times, often time by ourselves. If anything we’re getting sick of each other.”

“I’m wounded, mate,” said Mitchell, settling back down and returning to his crossword puzzle.

George focused back on his work and was able to get through two papers before he threw his pencil down and groaned.

“It’s no use,” he said. “What are they bloody playing at? Why make us wait? It’s been two days and no sign of them. I’m stretched to the limit here and pretty soon I’m going to start falling apart and I need to not do that right now.”

“It’s old tactics,” said Mitchell, as if he’d been expecting this to happen, which, blast him, he probably had. “Don’t let them get to you. We’re very patient, vampires, as a general rule.”

“So you’re different in that respect, too?” said George, automatically taking the gift given to him.

“In only the best sense,” said Mitchell, unflappable.

George shook his head and opened his mouth to continue when there was a knock at the door. George shot a look at Mitchell before clearing his throat and asking whoever it was to come in.

The door opened and in walked a girl. George relaxed and was about to ask her if she was lost when he noticed Mitchell’s reaction of complete and immediate stiffening.

“Can I help you?” asked George cautiously, a stink he recognized all too well suddenly filling his nostrils.

The little girl cocked her head and studied him for a minute.

“Hope so, George,” she finally said, hopping on a seat next to Mitchell and slinging her arm along the back window behind her casually. “Mitchell give you our message?”

“Who are you?” asked George.

“You’ll have to forgive Hetty,” said another voice entering the room. It was a man, dressed in a dark expensive coat and hat, he was considerably paler than he had any right to be and there was something incredibly unsettling about him. “She sometimes is overly endowed with the irreverence of her youth.”

“Whatever, old man,” said Hetty.

The man came to a halt in front of George and George stood up, less out of respect and more out of defiance.

“Who are you?” asked George.

Mitchell stood up as well and moved around to stand beside George.

“George, this is-”

“John, please,” said the man. “Allow me.” He extended his hand to George. “My name is Mr. Snow and this is my associate Hetty. I believe you were expecting us.”

George stared at the hand for a moment before deciding not to shake it. Mr. Snow brought it back elegantly and swept the moment away without any awkwardness.

“What do you want?” George asked tightly, trying to keep from trembling. 

Every sense he had was tingling. His wolf and he managed to keep quite a close relationship these days and while he would never be able to actually do anything wolf-like unless there was a moon, he found himself far more sensitive than he’d ever been before.

“I’ll come straight to the point, Mr. Sands,” said Mr. Snow. “I want your daughter.”

“Go to hell,” said George, the words a knee jerk reaction and he had to ponder whether pissing off the vampires was a good idea.

Mr. Snow smiled and glanced, just glanced, at Mitchell before taking a seat in front of the desk.

“Let’s be friendly about this, gentlemen,” he said, his tone a gentle warning. “I do so dislike uncivilized conversation.”

“What do you want with her?” asked Mitchell, arms folded across his chest. “How can you expect us to give her up without knowing that?”

“I think you know why we want her,” said Mr. Snow, “but in the interest of fairness, let’s dig a little deeper.” He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and George flinched. Hetty snorted in the corner. Mr. Snow brought out a carefully wrapped piece of paper and laid it on George’s desk, right over Billy Cadshowe’s practically illegible paper on the history of the French Revolution. “This is the War Prophecy, gentlemen, written on the historic Skin Parchments.”

Mitchell sucked in a breath and his fingers tightened on his arm. George didn’t know if that was good or bad and he decided to play dumb. It shouldn’t be that hard as he didn’t really know what that meant and anything else would just make him act more belligerently than he should right now.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I believe you were told of the progeny of two werewolves, made to destroy the vampires?”

“So?” said Mitchell, shrugging.

Mr. Snow shot a disapproving glance at Mitchell and George could see the other man tremble just slightly.

“So, this is the fullest surviving text. It is not complete, but it is what we know.” Mr. Snow carefully unwrapped the paper and then there was a preserved bit of human skin on George’s desk. He might never be able to work again. Mr. Snow leaned over it and almost lovingly read what even George, with his vast lingual understanding and education, could not. “There is a house, in which lives a supernatural Trinity of a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Ghost. Within that house, a child is born of two werewolves, the mother impregnated under the moon. The child born on the eve of war between the Trinity and the Vampires - this child will be the Godhead, the War Child. This same child will be the Saviour, imbued with the wolf’s natural strength and ferocity, heralding a new species, without limits, without mercy, the scourge of the scourge.”

George swallowed; he’d never heard that bit about the Trinity of vampire, werewolf, and ghost before. One look at Mitchell told George he hadn’t either. That did seem to clinch any doubt about the prophecy being about Eve though.

“My daughter is normal,” said George, annoyed at his voice for being so high. “She’s not a wolf; she’s never done anything remotely like what you just read.”

“Time will tell,” said Mr. Snow.

“Is that what you want her for,” said Mitchell. “To tell? You said this wasn’t complete. Why haven’t you tried to take her before?”

“We were not always aware of her existence,” Mr. Snow said with a self-deprecating smile. “We are not gods, John.”

“Then how?” Mitchell asked like he already knew the answer.

“You should watch what you tell your friends,” said Hetty. “I mean, haven’t you heard of encryption? We monitor it all, you know.”

“Carl,” Mitchell muttered.

“Would send his regards but he can’t,” said Mr. Snow enigmatically and Mitchell stiffened again as if he was trying to keep calm this time.

“Let’s focus on the matter at hand,” he said. “Why do you want her now? Why not just kill her?”

“Who said we won’t?” said Mr. Snow.

“You wouldn’t do it this way if you didn’t want her alive,” said Mitchell.

“John, you’re so conniving,” said Mr. Snow as if speaking to an errant student. Mitchell flinched like he was being assaulted and George had to wonder what old wound had just been torn open. “We are graciously offering a very generous sum to stem the loss that will flow from these…people. It has taken us long debate to decide to do so. We would have loved to have saved you years of attachment otherwise.”

“You did it to heighten the pain,” said Mitchell through clenched teeth. “Give it up, Snow, and go home. You’re not getting her and you don’t even know what to do with her if you did.” He turned to George. “Give me your phone.”

“What, why?” asked George, completely nonplussed and a little annoyed.

“I need to make a call,” said Mitchell, rolling his eyes. 

Mr. Snow looked taken aback but he didn’t say anything as George dug out his phone and handed it to Mitchell, who took it and had to fiddle with it a bit before placing a call. George could have sworn Mitchell was actually in the camera before he hit the call button. George looked up and Hetty winked at him and he felt extremely uncomfortable.

“We’re on our way, yeah,” said Mitchell. “No, no problems, see you then.” He clicked the phone and handed it to George. “Any questions?” he asked Mr. Snow. 

Mr. Snow shook his head and carefully wrapped the Skin Parchments up and put them back in his pocket.

“I am disappointed in you, John. All you could have been, all you will be. What a terrible shame, my son. Perhaps the end shall bring hope for you, we shall see.”

Mitchell shuddered again, but didn’t say anything.

“Been fun, lads,” said Hetty and she walked out.

Mr. Snow looked at George.

“Last chance, Mr. Sands. I shall not offer again. War shall be declared and your daughter made even more the War Child.”

George felt an overwhelming urge to run but he squared his shoulders and looked the vampire in the eye.

“Then you’d best prepare for my daughter to kick your arse.”

Mr. Snow made a tsking sound and almost seemed to glide out the door.

George waited a moment before slumping down to his desk and putting his head in his hands.

“We’re in it now,” said Mitchell above him and George couldn’t have agreed more.

***

Nina looked up at the slamming of the door and watched Eve run to George. He picked her up in his arms and gave her a hug, but Nina felt alarmed when she saw his eyes close over his tears as he did so.

“What’s my girl been doing?” George asked, walking Eve into the lounge and listening to her ecstatic babble.

Nina looked to Mitchell, walking in behind George.

“They talked to you, didn’t they?”

“Got it in one,” said Mitchell. “Aren’t you the brightest wolf of your age?”

“What happened?” Nina asked, ignoring his insult. Mitchell was always slightly more insulting when he was scared. “What did they say?”

“Hadn’t we better get this all out in the open?” he asked, sounding incredibly tired. “Annie, where are you?” he called.

Annie rent-a-ghosted into the room.

“Sorry, I was just sorting some things,” she said. “What’s happening then?”

“Having a house meeting,” said Mitchell and he went into the lounge without another word.

“Did something happen to the boys?” Annie looked at Nina in confusion.

“The vampires are here,” said Nina. 

Annie’s face fell and she took Nina’s hand.

“Don’t worry, Nina, we’re all here.”

“I’ll still worry, but thanks,” said Nina.

They went into the lounge together where Mitchell was skulking in the corner and George and Eve were playing on the floor. 

Tom was in the basement, having insisted on being locked in there until they figured out exactly what was happening to him. Nina could see him on the monitor feeding from the camera they’d installed outside the basement. He was lying on the bed they’d dragged in, a cloth on his forehead as he appeared to be stuck in a constant state of fever. Nina had been monitoring him but he didn’t appear to be ill enough to go to hospital and since they were all fairly sure it had to do with Eve’s bite, they were reluctant to do so in any case.

George settled on the couch with Eve in his arms and Nina could see her eyes drooping. She’d been extremely high energy lately without having as much room to run around as she normally did. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t go outside and had been very grumpy as a result. She’d thrown a tantrum right before George and Mitchell had gotten home and tired herself out. Nina was glad, maybe she’d finally sleep for a whole night.

“Then the papa bear tucked the baby bear into bed and she fell fast asleep,” said George. Eve stubbornly kept blinking in an effort to stay awake but she was fighting a losing battle. Nobody said anything, a weird hush falling over the room until Eve’s head finally dropped and she slept against George’s shoulder. Nina’s chest felt tight looking at the tableau in front of her. She’d always said there was nothing better than watching the two members of her family at peace. George looked up at her and he didn’t look at peace. “Was she okay today?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“No,” said Nina. “She can tell we’re upset and she hates being cooped up.”

“Don’t blame her,” said Mitchell, snorting. “Nothing worse than being caged, cooped up, leashed.”

Nina didn’t much like the sound of that.

“Tell us what happened, you two,” said Annie, sitting next to George and softly running her hand through Eve’s hair. “The suspense is killing me.”

George swallowed and related the vampiric visit they’d had and what they’d said.

“It’s not good,” said Mitchell, still standing and fidgeting.

“Anything you can tell us?” asked Annie. “About the prophecy and what they think about Eve?”

“They don’t know what they want,” said Mitchell. “They’re taking her for their own gain but they don’t know what to do, whether to kill her or experiment on her or imprison her. That’s why it’s been so easy.”

“You call this easy?” said George.

“Yeah, George, I do,” scoffed Mitchell. “We vampires aren’t known for compassion. There’d have been a bloodbath if they knew what they wanted. Snow’s too powerful, he knows how to manipulate the others, but he doesn’t know everything and that’s making him cautious. Otherwise there’d be teeth and fangs and veins and long nights of-” he checked himself, but they’d all heard the bloodlust in his voice.

“Anything you want to tell us, Mitchell?” asked Nina in a casual tone.

“Not really,” he snapped.

“Mitchell,” said Annie in a soothing yet somehow demanding voice.

He sighed and turned away from them, running his fingers through his hair. 

“Sorry, just…being around them is difficult. It’s too much like old times.”

“Will you be okay?” George asked.

“Do I look sodding okay?” asked Mitchell, but without the bite he’d had earlier.

“Sorry, sorry,” said George. “But, Mitchell, I have no time for your issues right now. My daughter’s at stake and I need you to man up and get over it.”

“I know!” Mitchell growled.

There was a dead silence in the room and Nina added Mitchell reverting to his old ways to her list of current concerns. Just perfect.

“When will they come?” she asked.

“Soon,” said Mitchell.

“Then what do we do?” asked Annie.

“Know more than they do,” said Mitchell.

Nina couldn’t agree more, though how they were going to know more than centuries old vampires with infinite resources, she wasn’t quite sure.

****

George tossed on the bed trying to get comfortable. He couldn’t sleep for all their discussion about trying to stay as rested as possible. Annie had pointed out somewhat reasonably that she could better stay up and watch all night since she didn’t need to sleep anyway. When George had tried to point out it wasn’t fair to make her do it all the time she’d psh-ed at him. It made sense, but George just didn’t feel good unless he was attempting to do something. It felt like all they did was wait for other people to make the first move. What first move he himself could make, he didn’t know, but he wanted to try.

Nina sighed from beside him.

“If you’re not going to sleep, could you at least be still?” she said.

“You’re one to talk,” George said. “You’re the one getting up every five minutes to check on Tom.”

“It’s not every five minutes,” Nina said. “Besides, it’s important and I have a responsibility to him, both as a medical practitioner and Eve’s mother.”

“I know,” said George. “I’m just saying it’s far more likely you’re keeping me up than the other way around.”

“What rot,” said Nina. “By the way, Tom’s fever broke,” she added into the darkness.

“Is that good?” George asked, twisting to look at her.

“I think so?” Nina said and he could feel her shrugging. “I don’t really have a precedent for this, but I’m inclined to be happy with any time that happens, unless it’s a precursor of something worse.”

“I’m sure it will be,” said George, being in a rather pessimistic mood.

“I’ll see how he feels in the morning,” said Nina. “Annie’s watching him, too.”

George nodded, his attention drawn to the baby monitor they had by their bedside. It had been a while since they’d had to use it, but after what had happened, they were going to be as careful as possible. Just because vampires couldn’t enter the house and take Eve didn’t mean other people couldn’t.

“What do you think will happen to Tom?” he asked. “I mean, we just don’t know what Eve can do.”

“I believe,” Nina said, pausing, “very much now what I told Tom before. Eve is meant to be a gift for werewolves and something wonderful will be the result.”

“That’s so not you,” George said, almost laughing.

Nina curled into his embrace and poked his shoulder.

“What do you think then?”

“No idea,” said George, “but dangerous things were done in that original ritual from what I can make out. People are sometimes willing to do bad things if it means worse things happen to their enemies.”

“That’s true,” said Nina, “but not my girl.”

“She can’t help who she is,” said George sadly. “No more than we can or Mitchell.”

“Not my girl,” Nina repeated somewhat fiercely.

George decided not to argue with her. There were too many old wounds for both of them in that direction. Whatever happened, they’d find out soon enough.

“Okay,” he replied instead.

“Mitchell’s going to help us figure her out,” said Nina. “We just didn’t try hard enough before.”

That triggered something else worrying George.

“Do you think Mitchell is okay?” he asked.

“You’re so worried about him all the time,” muttered Nina. “He’s fine, just being a wanker like normal.”

“You didn’t see him with Snow,” said George. “He was petrified, Nina.”

“I know,” said Nina. “Something’s affecting him, but I can’t let that be my top concern right now. We all promised each other that we’d stick by Mitchell and be a group and help each other. He’s having a bad day and we’ll get him through it just like always.”

“If he turns on us?” George asked, voicing one of his greatest fears.

“Then we honor his other request and stake him,” said Nina. “But, don’t, George, just don’t.”

“If…” George said, clearing his throat, “if something does happen…you need to take Eve and go.”

“I should lambast you for being a noble, self-sacrificing idiot,” Nina said, her tone only half angry, “but in the end my job would be harder so I’m pretty sure you’re just being a selfish bastard instead.”

George had to chuckle and he snaked his arm around her middle.

“I love you, my wife.”

“I love you as well,” said Nina. “Now stop fretting and get some sleep. We’re going to have enough to worry about soon enough.”

“Soon enough,” George echoed.

He felt slightly better as he did whenever he was able to talk frankly with Nina, but it didn’t stop his more anxious nature from continuing its inner panic. He didn’t know what to do and that was the most terrifying thought he could have.


	5. Chapter 5

Nina was very nervous about this, but she really needed more help than she could give Tom by herself. She just couldn’t control what was going to happen and she couldn’t afford to ignore helping him.

His fever had broken the night before, true, but he was still clearly ill. She needed to get access to some better medical equipment. Once she’d revealed that news to the others, they’d had a planning session and decided that Annie could rent-a-ghost Nina and Tom into the hospital, thus, hopefully, circumventing any vampire interference and keeping protection for Eve at the house.

As far as Nina knew Annie was the only ghost who could transport someone who was alive with her when she teleported from place to place. Maybe all ghosts could do it but all ghosts hadn’t broken into the afterlife and taken down the king of purgatory. Annie was extremely powerful and most of the time she simply acted like a fun aunt. Whenever they’d talked about it before, Annie usually said that she’d rather be a fun aunt than a miserable tyrant. Nina could respect that and be grateful for it.

“Be careful, yeah?” Mitchell said, rubbing his hands nervously on his denims. 

“Extremely careful,” said George, kissing Nina.

“Don’t forget to be careful yourselves, boys,” Annie said.

Annie placed one hand on Nina and the other on a supine Tom and before Nina could blink, she’d passed through some kind of gray mist and appeared in the MRI room at her hospital. She hopped into action immediately, attempting to make the most of the time when everyone else locked up and went to lunch. Her credentials would have to be logged into the machines but she’d deal with that later.

Annie skipped back and forth slightly.

“Be still, please,” said Nina. “I have a feeling your presence might muck up my results.”

“Sorry,” said Annie. “Just a bit excited is all. I’ve never seen the inside of one of these things before.”

“It’s okay,” said Nina, positioning Tom where she wanted him.

It was a long and slow process and finally she was done, but it felt like much longer than it had really been. Annie had popped back home twice and said the boys and Eve were fine, but Nina still didn’t like not knowing what was happening.

They were waiting for the results when Tom suddenly lurched up and hit his head on the tube.

“Out,” he screamed, “let me out!” and beat his hands on the sides.

Nina hastily pushed the button and ran into the other room. Tom had been unconscious for so long she hadn’t bothered trying to alert him to what she was planning. He was thrashing and she tried to avoid his limbs while she calmed him down.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Tom, you’re with friends; it’s okay.”

“Tom, you’re fine,” said Annie. “We’re helping.”

Tom didn’t listen to either of them and with alarm Nina saw that he was falling to the floor, his back arching like her own did when she was transforming. There was the cracking sound of breaking bones and Tom kept screaming.

Nina backed off, there was nothing she could do now and this room was as secure as she could make it for the moment.

“Annie, let’s go,” she said, running into the monitor room and slamming and locking the door.

Annie went with her and they watched Tom transform in silence while Nina tried to figure out what to do. The machine spit out her results next to her and she picked it up, skimming it while keeping one eye on Tom. She powered down the machines automatically, erasing her hours long work.

“Why is this happening now?” Annie asked, though it was obvious she didn’t really want an answer.

“Have you ever transported a werewolf before?” asked Nina, who didn’t have an answer anyway. 

They’d never had cause to try as far as Nina knew.

“Nope,” said Annie.

“Care to try?” asked Nina.

“Oh, I just knew you were going to say that,” said Annie.

The wolf Tom was slumped on the floor and he suddenly leapt up, snarling. Nina couldn’t help but flinch and wait for the destruction of valuable medical equipment.

He leapt at the wall several times before finding his way to the door.

The wolf started pawing at the door, growling. Nina waved, trying to get his attention.

Tom saw her and flashed his fangs but then he shook his head before he came and sat down next to the window, as if he was waiting for her.

“Is he…?” asked Nina.

“Is that actually Tom?” asked Annie at the same time.

“Tom?” called Nina softly, remembering to press the microphone.

Tom’s ears lifted and he howled, and then began pacing, his nails digging into the floor.

“He’s really there…” said Annie in awe.

“Tom, can we come in there?” asked Nina.

“Nina, don’t,” said Annie.

“Just get me out if there’s a problem,” Nina said, certain she was about to do the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life.

Annie nodded and Nina slowly unlocked the door and entered the room. Tom growled at her and she stopped. She advanced again after a moment, holding her hand out. Tom didn’t move and she went closer. Finally, she was close enough to let him sniff her hand and he made a whining sound and then licked her palm. Nina let out a breath and smiled at Annie who looked amazed. Tom then howled and banged his head against the wall and Nina could hear the sounds of other people outside beginning to wonder what was happening. She stuffed the results she was still holding in her pocket.

“I’m getting us out of here,” said Annie, popping up next to Nina and putting her hand on her shoulder and then stretching out to Tom.

Tom snapped at Annie’s fingers but while Nina was still processing the information, she discovered she was standing just outside the basement while Tom was inside the cage and Annie was standing in the middle of the bars.

“Uh, that’s new, isn’t it?” asked Nina.

“Not really,” said Annie, smiling. “I have a whole bag of tricks.”

“Glad you made it to the party,” said Nina.

There was the sound of rushing feet on the stairs and Nina’s heart stopped before she realized it was George and Mitchell, Mitchell carting Eve on his back.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” asked George as they stared at the wolf Tom now howling and smashing against the walls, acting much more like a normal wolf transformation.

“We’ve got a bit of an answer,” said Nina.

“Tom’s a wolf,” said Annie.

“Oh, hell,” said Mitchell.

***

“What’s going on?” repeated George, still not sure he could believe his eyes. Tom as a wolf was doing his utmost best to get out of his cage and there was no full moon outside and George himself was human as was Nina and, again, Tom was a wolf. “I knew it, I’ve finally gone mad,” George said, leaning against the wall and putting his hand to his head. “It was bound to happen sometime but I’d hoped for a few more sane years.”

Annie laughed and attempted to squeeze her tiny arms around George’s far above her shoulders. He didn’t know why she still kept trying to do that after all these years. It only worked when they were sitting down and even then she couldn’t quite get all the way around.

“We’re all seeing it, George. It was amazing. He just turned, right in the middle of Nina’s MRI. She got close to him and he licked her and everything. It was a bit weird, that bit. But then he got all snarl-y and I brought everyone back home. It was slightly hard actually, a challenge, if you will.” Annie brought her hands together gleefully. “So great a distance with two live people and one of them trying to bite my hands off, marvelous!”

“Ahh, Annie love,” said Mitchell, pulling Eve around so that he was carrying her instead of her trying her best to pull his windpipe out the back of his neck. George knew full well how that felt from his own experience playing piggyback. “Perhaps we’d better cap the wonders of ghostly travel and concentrate on the ‘very not under the influence of a full moon’ werewolf in our midst?”

“Oh, right,” said Annie. “Sorry, got all excited.”

“Congratulations, though,” said Mitchell.

“Thanks,” Annie said, beaming.

“Oh bother,” said George, ready to slam his head against the wall. “Can you two just focus!”

Eve popped her head round and looked at Tom curiously.

“He’s wolf,” she said solemnly.

“That’s right,” said Nina, going and taking Eve from Mitchell.

“You not,” said Eve and she stuck her thumb in her mouth. “Daddy not,” she said around her thumb.

“It’s okay, baby,” said Nina. “Let’s go upstairs and get some food.”

“We eat lunch,” said Eve.

“Then we’ll have a snack,” said Nina. She headed upstairs and mouthed to George to watch Tom. “What would you like?”

Her voice faded as she went up the stairs and George and Mitchell were left with a bouncing Annie, apparently still exhilarated from her recent rent-a-ghost experience.

“Tell us what happened from the beginning,” said Mitchell.

“Right,” said Annie, and proceeded to do so with a lot of unnecessary hand gestures, George thought. He was beginning to get quite the headache.

“So, Eve’s bite did all this,” said Mitchell. “Made it possible for him to change when there was no moon.”

“But he was almost cognizant,” said Annie. “I mean, George is pretty good nowadays with remembering afterwards what happened and Tom’s always had more memories than either George or Nina, but this, this was like he could control himself.”

“For a while,” said George. “Then he tried to kill you.”

“There was that,” said Annie, “but it was only his first time.”

“So there’s going to be more, of course, there is,” George answered his own question. “Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Just calm down, George,” said Mitchell. “You’re both so loony I can’t think.”

“I like that,” said Annie. “You’d better watch it, mister, or I’ll-I’ll, well, you won’t like it,” she sputtered out.

George rolled his eyes.

Tom had been spending this entire conversation heaving himself at the walls but all of a sudden he stopped and sat down on the floor, tongue lolling out, for all the world looking like a dog on holiday. Then he suddenly whined as if he was in pain and lay down. George watched, fascinated, as the body arched and the bones split and the wolf howled in pain until the scream became silent and then vocal again as a human scream. 

George had never seen anyone else transform or return to human form as he’d always been too busy transforming himself. The barest glimpses of what he’d seen of Nina when they transformed together were always shrouded in a midst of agony. It was quite grotesque and yet George couldn’t tear his eyes away until what was left was a huddled, naked Tom on the floor.

Mitchell quickly grabbed the blanket and spare set of clothes that were always kept right outside the cage and tossed them inside, leaving the door unlocked.

“Should you unlock that?” George hissed. “What if he suddenly transforms again?”

“Then I’ll zap him back,” Annie said confidently.

George sighed, resigned, and then turned to his friends.

“Do I look like that?” George inquired.

“Sometimes worse,” said Annie quietly.

George nodded, his thoughts preoccupied, as Mitchell stepped closer to the cage.

“You all right, mate?” he called.

There was a silence before Tom answered, his voice hoarse.

“Middling, but I’ll be fine. Don’t feel sick no more.”

“I think your body’s finished doing whatever it was going to do,” said Mitchell. “Come on out when you’re dressed, we’ll be upstairs.”

“Okay,” said Tom.

Mitchell herded Annie and George up the stairs where they found Nina hovering, one eye being kept on Eve, happily eating on the counter.

“Did he change back?” asked Nina. “I could hear it.”

“He seems fine,” said Mitchell.

“I am fine,” said Tom sturdily, coming up behind them. “Just the usual aches.”

Nina instantly put her hand to his forehead and turned his head this way and that, looking in his eyes.

“No fever anyway,” she said. She grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse. “Pulse normal.”

“I feel fine,” said Tom.

“What happened?” asked Annie.

Tom shrugged.

“Don’t remember much after I felt sick. Was dreaming about running. Woke up in the tube thing and panicked. Suddenly I was getting to be a wolf and it hurt and I was gonna wait until I woke up again, but I heard your voice, Nina. Smelled you. Didn’t want to hurt you.”

“But you got savage again pretty quickly,” said Nina.

“Was hard,” Tom said. “Me wolf wanted out but I didn’t want it to. It’s strong.”

“I think you got back control again at the end,” said Annie encouragingly. “You stopped being wolf-y right before you transformed.”

“I could see you guys talking and hear it,” said Tom. “Wanted in, I guess.” He looked at his feet. “Do you know why I transformed?” he asked finally.

“I think you were scared and your body tried to protect itself,” said Nina. 

“Your body’s ultimate protection is the wolf,” said Mitchell. “Eve’s bite must have allowed you to be able to access that without the moon. That’s…that’s-”

“Horrible,” said George, reeling. “Imagine going through it more than once a month, just willy nilly, whenever you got a bit emotional.”

“You’d be nothing but a wolf,” muttered Annie.

Nina and Mitchell both laughed and George tried not to feel indignant. Even Tom was giving a rare smile, which made him look less like a kicked puppy and more like a semi-happy puppy.

“Think about it,” said George, trying to be serious. “That’s dangerous. The only safety we have is that we know when it happens.”

“Maybe Tom can learn to control it,” said Annie.

“I think I can,” said Tom.

“Thinking isn’t good enough,” said George. “We can’t be sure. We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.”

“What’s done is done,” said Nina. “You can’t stop this, George, so stop trying to. We’ll deal with it as it comes.” Nina turned to Tom and George swallowed his next tirade. This really wasn’t the time, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a humdinger of a reply. “Tom, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” said Tom.

“Now that you’re out of danger, but I’ll be watching you closely to make sure,” said Nina, “it appears we can concentrate on Eve. Mitchell, are you ready to study like your life depends on it?”

Mitchell turned a pained gaze to where Eve was eating and she waved at him, almost falling off her stool. Mitchell gave a half smile that made George want to cry and nodded.

“Then let’s get going,” said Annie, clapping. “Just send me out for books whenever you need it.”

That had been the plan, Mitchell knew where things were located, or at least vaguely, but none of them wanted to chance leaving. Annie was really their only option and was the only one who had any way of escaping a vampire should she get caught on the outside. Plus, she could go anywhere in the world. A handy little trick, if slightly creepy, in George’s opinion.

“I need you to get to Carl if you can,” said Mitchell, his face tight. “I don’t think he’s okay. He was running and I don’t know where he ended up or if he made it at all, so start with his last place and grab me anything they didn’t take.” He took a step forward and grabbed Annie’s face, kissing her deeply. “Be careful.”

George nodded shakily and grabbed Annie’s hand.

“Running is not cowardly,” he said. “Just go and come straight back.”

“Or else,” said Nina.

Tom nodded, apparently not feeling the need to reiterate the advice. George couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t like they weren’t being overly cautious anyway.

Annie kissed Mitchell back, squeezed George’s hand, gave Nina a salute and Tom a smile, and blew Eve a kiss before vanishing.

She was really quite scary if George ever stopped to think about it.

She hadn’t been gone long and they were all ensconced at the dining room table, now covered in a mountain of books. Nina had a laptop open on her lap and Mitchell sometimes dictated to her, while George squinted at old languages he’d fought hard to decipher their secrets. 

Tom suddenly raised his head and sniffed loudly, every muscle tense.

“What is it?” asked Nina, immediately going to check on Eve, who was now coloring on the floor beside them.

“Somewhat’s wrong,” said Tom. “It smells bad.”

“What?” asked George before realizing he could smell something as well.

Mitchell stood and closed his eyes as if listening. When he opened them again he had his dangerous face on, at least that’s what George and Annie called it in private. 

“Someone’s close,” he said.

“I smell ‘em,” said Tom.

George went cautiously to the window and peeked outside. It wasn’t dark yet, but there was a man standing at the front of their road, just watching the house. Nina poked her head up under his arm and looked out.

“I don’t recognize these ones,” she said.

Mitchell was busy looking out the back.

“Too bright for them to want to be here,” he said. “Those are their people. But they’re in the barn. Darker in there. They can watch at night, make sure we can’t leave.”

“Good we stocked up on groceries,” said Tom. “What about the animals?”

“Not a chance,” said Mitchell. “You go out there; you’re fodder or a hostage.”

“They need feeding,” said Tom stubbornly.

“Let it go, Tom,” said Nina. “There’s plenty of loose food to last them a bit and it’s too dangerous.”

Tom sighed, but nodded.

“Mummy,” said Eve.

George turned sharply, her tone making him instantly alert.

Eve was standing right behind them, her hand on the back of Nina’s leg, looking out the window.

“Are you okay, baby?” asked Nina, picking Eve up.

“Bad men,” she said more than asked and she buried her head in Nina’s shoulder.

George’s eyes met Nina’s over Eve’s head and his heart broke listening to Eve and seeing answering pain in Nina’s expression.

“Nothing to worry about, sweetheart,” said Nina.

“Stay inside,” said Eve. “Bad men.”

“Mummy will beat the bad men,” said George, kissing Eve’s head. “Daddy will, too.”

“Your uncles have a bit of fight in them,” said Mitchell, “and we’re nothing compared to your aunt.”

Eve gave a small laugh though George didn’t think she could fully understand what Mitchell was saying.

George rubbed his temple and tried to think. They were pretty much trapped in the house now and their only route to a quick escape wasn’t currently in the house. If it came to a fight they would be outnumbered.

“Tom, I think you might want to practice becoming a wolf on demand,” said Nina.

George didn’t know if he could agree with that, but Tom looked almost excited about it. At least that seemed to still make Mitchell uneasy.

At that moment Annie popped back into the room carrying a bag with her, but her expression was grim.

She went immediately to Mitchell and leaned into his body, her forehead against his.

“What?” he asked, with the look of a man who knew the bad news was coming.

“I’m so sorry, Mitchell,” said Annie. “Carl’s dead.”

“And they tortured him to get to me,” said Mitchell, his voice sounding as dead as his body was. 

Annie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. They all knew that was what had happened. George felt sorry for Mitchell, but he hadn’t really known Carl. All he knew was that the vampires were currently outside, waiting to take his daughter.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been several hours since the vampires showed up. Nina was about to go crazy, but she was too busy keeping everyone else from going crazy. George and Mitchell were like pacing zombies and Annie had taken to popping from one side of the room to the other when she thought she found something. Eve was at least somewhat distracted and hadn’t looked scared of the ‘bad men’ for the last forty minutes. Before that, though, she had been somewhat inconsolable, crying and clinging to Nina. It made Nina livid to think something could do that to Eve, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. 

The vampires were outside and it was getting close to dark, several of them had walked outside the barn as if to prove that they could. There were more of them than she’d seen at the hospital. They were all wondering what was going to happen when the sun went down. The vampires couldn’t come inside and the house was pretty heavily built, in many ways because of their attempts to make it werewolf proof. It was a double blessing now.

Mitchell said he didn’t think they’d do anything tonight, that it was a scare tactic, and Nina was inclined to think his hunch was right. She’d sent Tom to the basement to try and access his inner wolf.

So far Tom had transformed twice, only for a few minutes each time, and he’d never seemed to have the same grasp of his faculties as that first time. It took a lot out of him and she had Annie bring him a lot of food and she monitored his progress herself. Her first priority was Eve, but that didn’t mean she was going to ignore it if Tom went into shock or something from an overload to his system. She knew firsthand how horrible it was to transform and she couldn’t imagine doing it three times in one day.

Then again, if she could transform right now, she wouldn’t feel nearly as afraid of the men standing outside her house, trying to take her daughter away from her.

“We’re missing something,” Mitchell said, slamming shut his book. “This bloody book is useless.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nina.

“There’s too many parts of the prophecy missing,” said George, rubbing his temples. “The vampires don’t have all of it, neither do we. Apparently the War Prophecy was split into different parts and called the Skin Parchments - unnecessary barbarism, but I’ll try to move past it and go on - and scattered.”

“I took a picture with George’s phone when we were meeting,” said Mitchell. “It’s not the highest quality, I’ll grant you, but it’ll do. It gives me more than I’ve ever had to go on before. But it looks like there’s a piece missing and, granting the Old Ones don’t have it, I’m betting it will never be found.”

“So?” asked Annie.

“So we know there will be a War Child, we know something of what her powers are, but we don’t know her purpose, and there’s too many references to the phrase ‘to live and to die,’ for my liking.”

Nina could see why Mitchell was frustrated. She’d left the prophecy unraveling to him and George because they were the best two to be able to understand it, but she didn’t see how they’d be able to.

“What’s your next step?” she asked, trying to speak calmly.

“What Carl had is useless,” said Mitchell, running his hands through his hair. “I’m sure the Old Ones took it all or he got it from them to begin with.”

“So you’re giving up?” Nina asked.

“Of course not,” he snapped.

“I know!” said Annie, hopping a little. “I can go to the Other Side; there must be someone there who could help.”

George and Mitchell looked at each other and shrugged.

“It wouldn’t hurt…” said George.

“I don’t want you to leave, Annie,” said Nina.

“No need,” said Annie.

She turned to the telly and snapped her fingers, obviously for effect, but it suddenly turned on and there was the sound of static so loud it made Nina’s head ache.

“I forgot she could do that,” muttered George, shuddering a little.

“Long time, Annie,” came a voice through the static and as Nina leaned closer she could see a pale face with dark hair.

“Gilbert!” said Annie. “Is everything okay?”

“You tell me,” he said. “You’re the one reaching out.”

“I’m trying to get some information,” she said and gave a quick rundown of the situation for him.

“Sounds like fun,” he said, in the entirely inappropriate way the dead have of making light of circumstances. “Don’t know what help I can be though.”

“Well, someone there who’s dead must have some idea of what’s on the missing Skin Parchments,” said Annie. “Do a poll or something.”

“I’ll ask around,” said Gilbert. “I know each person that runs through here, luv, and I’ve never heard tale of them before.”

“Just try,” said Annie. “I mean, it can’t hurt and I need all the information I can get.”

“All right,” said Gilbert. Nina watched him close his eyes and flicker. She had no idea what was going on, but Annie didn’t seem concerned so Nina simply picked Eve up and began brushing her hair instead of wasting mental energy on curiosity. “No good,” he said finally, opening his eyes. “I will keep trying.”

“Thank you,” said Annie. “You know where to find me. Gilbert, this is really, really important. My whole family rests on this and you know how much they mean to me.”

“Too well, the whole of Purgatory knows,” Gilbert said, his tone light.

The telly flickered again and then turned off.

“There’s that,” said Annie, turning back to everyone. “If he can’t, I’ll go and knock some heads together.”

“Annie,” said Mitchell, his tone slightly warning. 

Annie looked as embarrassed as a ghost could get and she nodded at him. Nina frowned. It was true that Annie had done quite a few questionable things with her powers over the years, especially when she had first really come into them, but she wondered just what Mitchell was referring to. 

In the end it didn’t really matter, but it was a good reminder to Nina that there was more to their lives beyond this problem, and she was determined to fight for that. They’d all been through so much and she wanted the time to go through whatever else came their way.

“I’m going to keep looking,” said George and turned back to his books.

“I’ll check on Tom,” said Annie.

Nina and Mitchell exchanged looks and he gave her a forced smile before sitting back down, his fingers beating a frantic tattoo on his leg. Nina kept on combing Eve’s hair until she fell asleep.

***

When the sun finally dawned again, George let out a sigh. It didn’t really mean anything, but somehow the sun was a sign they had gotten through the first trial. The vampires didn’t like the sun. The Old Ones were back in the barn though men still stood watch around the house.

Nina had gone to bed with Eve at her normal time but George and Mitchell had stayed up with Annie while Tom slept the sleep of the exhausted. George could now hear the sounds of Tom shoveling food into his mouth and Nina giving Eve a bath. Funny how everything was so normal when everything was really the most horrible it had ever been.

“We need shuteye, mate,” said Mitchell. “I can’t go forever and I know you can’t.” 

Wearily, George nodded and heaved his long frame out of his chair. He passed Annie in the hall and sleepily waved good night.

George had often experienced high bursts of adrenaline when he felt like he could conquer the universe and keep the feeling forever. It never did last, but he had never even had the chance to develop such energy this time. All the Old Ones were doing was watching but, while absolutely nerve wracking, it didn’t lend itself to any kind of burst of chemicals.

Mitchell was following George silently when he suddenly swore and George looked around sharply and then yelped.

“George, what’s wrong?” called Nina, her voice controlled but somehow panicked.

George gaped for a second before Mitchell elbowed him in the ribs and put his finger to his lips.

“Ugh, uh, stubbed my bloody toe,” George yelled back, wondering why on earth he was following Mitchell’s lead on this.

That little girl vampire, Hetty, was sitting on their roof, staring in the window at him and Mitchell and grinning.

“Be careful,” said Nina, her tone making him believe she didn’t quite buy it but wasn’t going to push it.

“Yes, Nina,” said George, shadowing Mitchell closely as they walked to the window.

“Fancy a drink?” said Hetty as they drew close. 

The window muffled her voice considerably but George could hear her well enough.

“Naww, too early,” said Mitchell. “What do you want, Hetty?”

“Oh, just a chat,” said Hetty. “It’s been ages.”

“We were never exactly friends,” said Mitchell, clenching and unclenching his fingers.

“You were too young and impulsive,” said Hetty.

“And now?” asked Mitchell.

“You’re older and impulsive,” answered Hetty, flashing him a grin. “But never mind all of that now.”

“Why? What’s happening?” asked Mitchell.

“A good old fashioned siege is what,” said Hetty. “I haven’t been in one of those for bloody ever. But it’s a pity you’re involved.”

“Because?” Mitchell asked.

“Something’s bound to go wrong,” she said. “From us or them. You’re in the ultimate no win situation.”

“We wouldn’t do anything to hurt Mitchell,” squawked George, feeling slightly indignant.

After all, if they put up with him day in and day out for years, it was hardly likely they’d just throw all that investment away.

“Oh, it wouldn’t be you,” Hetty said, wide-eyed. “It’d be that precious daughter of yours. She carries the curse of the vampires and Mitchell does happen to be one in case you didn’t notice.”

“What does that mean?” asked George.

“Are you saying you know the reason she’s so dangerous?” asked Mitchell.

Hetty shrugged, the picture of indifference. George wanted to punch her.

“Let’s just say I’ve had time enough to put the pieces together. All I want you to know, Mitchell, is that Snow won’t rest until he has her. That little girl will break the world simply by existing. If you get near her…well, let’s just say, you won’t ever be the same.”

“Your bloody cryptic clues aren’t helping anyone, Hetty!” Mitchell said, thumping his fist against the wall.

George felt slightly alarmed. Mitchell was already affected by the presence of the Old Ones and now he was running on zero sleep. 

“She’s just trying to rile you up,” George said, cautiously putting his hand on Mitchell’s shoulder.

It was tense as anything, but it relaxed slightly under his touch.

“Oh, she is,” said Mitchell, staring unnervingly at Hetty through the glass. “But this one always has multiple reasons for everything she does. I just don’t know what the other ones are.”

“I hope you figure it out soon,” said Hetty, “for your sake. Just remember, the War Child doesn’t know friend from foe, it can’t. You may save her only to die.”

Hetty jumped off the building. George blinked, unsure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.

“Did she just…” he asked, pointing dumbly.

“She did,” said Mitchell, nodding grimly. 

“Are you okay?” asked George.

“No,” said Mitchell. “I won’t be till this is over and, who knows, maybe I’ll be dead.”

“No,” said George fiercely. “That is not how this ends.”

“George,” said Mitchell, his intensity suddenly melting into a comfortable deprecation George was more familiar with. “You’re ridiculous, you know that.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said George.

“Can’t help it,” Mitchell said, shrugging. “Born and died this way.” He started to walk away and George caught his arm, worried about what fool thing Mitchell would do. Mitchell looked George in the eye and smiled. “It’s okay, George. I’m not planning on dying, but the best part is, if I do, at least I did it for the right reasons this time and I won’t have to live with this struggle anymore.”

George let him go this time and shuffled to his bed, checking under the bed and barricading the window automatically. He couldn’t get Mitchell’s words out of his head and his sleep, though quite immediate, didn’t feel that restful.

***

Nina wrestled Eve out of the bathtub and ignored the dramatic huffing coming from her daughter. It was like this every single time and she and George took turns because it was often so disagreeable. Nina had read lots of stories of innocent and fun playtime in the bath for children, but she’d never experienced it. As it was, Eve was finally clean and Nina helped her to get dressed. Eve was just at the stage when she was becoming interested in what she wore and wanting to do what she could herself.

“Ye’lo,” said Eve when Nina held up two choices of hair ties.

Nina finished the braid and inspected her work. She’d gotten quite good at it if she did say so herself. Annie had spent hours teaching her on a mannequin Nina had bought online when Nina had started freaking out about being the mother to a little girl.

“You’re my very pretty girl,” she said. 

Eve beamed and Nina caught a sob in the back of her throat. Eve looked at her with curiosity and then hugged what she could reach of Nina.

“Okay, Mummy. Bad men go away.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” said Nina, tucking her emotions away as they weren’t helping her do anything. “You’re so smart and helpful and kind.”

“Unca John says I’m radscal,” said Eve.

“Rascal,” corrected Nina automatically. “Yes, sometimes you are. Now, let’s go and get something to eat.”

Eve jumped from the counter and ran down the hall. Nina followed much more quickly than she would have normally. She didn’t want to let Eve out of her sight at the moment.

Annie was in the kitchen and swooped on Eve as soon as she came into the room.

Nina watched for a moment as Annie filled her daughter full of breakfast food.

“I’ve got her,” said Annie gently when she caught Nina staring. “You should clear your head.”

“It won’t do any good, I’m afraid,” said Nina grimly. “I do want to check on Tom though. Is he in the basement?”

“Yeah,” said Annie.

Nina nodded and headed for the basement. What she found was a cage full of werewolf Tom sitting calmly in the center of the room.

“Tom?” she said, moving to the door. The wolf’s head snapped toward her and he padded over to the door, sitting again. “Is that you in there?” Nina asked.

The wolf actually nodded to her. Nina was impressed and watched for a few moments as Tom ran in circles and then stopped, panting. He crumpled in on himself a few minutes later and began a transformation back to human form.

Nina turned away while he got dressed and then went inside the cage with him.

“Do you feel all right?” she asked, checking his vitals.

“Bit sore,” said Tom. “Feel fine otherwise.”

“Are you able to be in control the whole time?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, it’s still hard and all, but I manage. Takes a bit of effort.”

“It’s quite amazing,” said Nina. “I’m worried it will wear you out though.”

“Naw,” said Tom. “Just need refueling. Annie takes care of that.”

“Be careful,” said Nina. “You’re needed for more things than this.”

“It’s my part, you know,” Tom said. “I got to do this and make it count. I can hold it now for as long as I want.”

Nina didn’t quite know what to say to that. Tom so often wasn’t clear about what he wanted, but she could see this meant something to him. What, she didn’t quite know.

“Do you want to try again then?” asked Nina.

“Yeah,” said Tom eagerly. 

She left the room and took the clothes he tossed out to her. Within seconds there was the cracking and screaming she had unfortunately become so used to.

“Tom?” she asked the wolf. The wolf nodded and pulled back his lips into what Nina assumed was a smile. “You know who I am?” she asked. He nodded again. “Is it safe for me to come in there?” she asked.

The wolf didn’t hesitate but nodded again and put one paw on the gate expectantly.

Nina didn’t quite know what made her do it, but she stepped inside the cage with the wolf and kept quite still as he licked her palm, acting all the while like a puppy with his master. There was something wrong with the picture, but at least he wasn’t trying to chew her face off.

They experimented like that for a few hours. Nina made frequent trips upstairs to check on Eve and see what was happening with the vampires, but Annie said there was nothing happening and that the other two were still asleep. 

Mitchell woke up before George, but it wasn’t mid-afternoon when George found his tousle head-ed way down to the basement and squawked loudly when he saw Nina sitting in the cage with Tom as a wolf.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

Nina rolled her eyes and got up, addressing Tom as she left.

“Change back, Tom, you’ve had enough for a while, you need to eat and rest.”

Bones cracked behind her in response and she left his clothes inside the door.

“Why would you go in there?” asked George, hugging her tightly when she got back outside.

“Because that was Tom, not his wolf,” said Nina. “It’s amazing, George, he can control it.”

“One hundred percent of the time?” demanded George.

“I admit there are some kinks to work out,” said Nina. “This is all very new and none of us knows anything for certain. But he’s been consistently in control and able to change on demand all day.”

“That’s bloody unbelievable,” said George. “It’s too much.”

Nina could see he was attempting to deal with the news but she didn’t want him to put his emotional outbursts on Tom.

“Just try and understand,” she said, speaking in a low voice. “That boy has been literally breaking his body to figure this out. He’s doing it for us, for Eve.”

George’s eyes softened and he looked calmer. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look like he was going to send anyone to detention either.

Tom came up awkwardly beside them.

“Pretty cool, innit?” he asked George. “I mean, the control and all.”

“Very…cool,” said George.

“It’s no picnic,” said Tom, “but it’s better than before. I think you two should have a go.”

“What?” asked George and Nina together. 

Nina hadn’t even considered it really. It wasn’t a terrible idea, the timing was just poor.

“We don’t really know if it will affect us the exact same as you,” said Nina. “Besides, all of us can’t just be in comas or trying to control a wolf right now. There’s too much going on with Eve.”

“Right, right,” said Tom. “Didn’t mean now exactly. But come the time, you should.”

“Does it hurt less?” asked George.

Tom hesitated and then shook his head.

“It’s just normal-like. What’s different is after, when you’re inside your mind. The wolf be there, you be there. Can’t describe it, really. Just…it’s better.”

Tom smiled slightly and walked up the stairs. Nina watched him go with a thoughtful look. Better wasn’t exactly the clearest description she’d ever heard, but she couldn’t deny that the idea of being able to control what happened to her was appealing.


	7. Chapter 7

George watched Tom disappear up the stairs and he tried to wrap his head around what he’d just heard. The idea that George Sands would be a werewolf was…well, it was normal now. He’d accepted it, he’d even grown to somewhat like it. He and his wolf were now in complete agreement on most things. It’s not like he had conversations with it or anything, they were the same, after all. Yet, somehow, he felt like there was this connection, this understanding. It was, when under careful control, an incredibly effective way to release stress and anger. George had found himself to be able to be a lot more patient and caring the rest of the month simply because he knew he could explode at least once and there wouldn’t be any repercussions. That was what he and his wolf agreed on.

If George did what Tom suggested and became…whatever Tom was now, well, how would that agreement change? Would there still be that level of kinship there or would the wolf take over every aspect of George’s life? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to control it, maybe the wolf would resent being controlled as it had when George had tried doping it, maybe it would all go horribly, horribly wrong.

“Glad you told him that,” said George, wrapping an arm around Nina’s shoulders.

“He’s not wrong though,” said Nina.

“Excuse me?” asked George in disbelief.

Nina had always been so against being a werewolf and the supernatural world and now she wanted to be a monster more often?

“This…this happened to us, George,” Nina said, turning to face him. “We didn’t have any say in the matter. It’s brought misery and pain and death.”

“Right, let’s have more of it all the time then,” said George sarcastically.

“It’s not about that,” said Nina. “It’s about being able to control it. I hate not knowing what could happen when I transform. Every time it paralyzes me. This way, I could be the one in control.”

“But you don’t even know if it will happen that way, you said it yourself,” argued George.

“Right,” said Nina, shrugging. “Obviously I’m not about to run upstairs and ask Eve to bite me; don’t be stupid. There are important things at stake here. If I do it, I’ll wait until I see what happens next full moon with Tom and if he has any more side effects or anything else.”

“This isn’t a science experiment,” said George. “It’s monsters and prophecy, there aren’t measurable rules.”

“Maybe not,” said Nina. “I’m not saying I want to do this, George, I’m just saying it might be the way I can live with my wolf.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your wolf,” said George. “She’s actually quite pretty,” he added weakly.

Nina smiled at him and leaned her head against his chest.

“No doubt that was meant to be comforting, but all it does is show case how different we are.”

“What do you mean?” asked George, not liking the idea of them being different, not about this.

“We both ran from our wolves for a long time,” said Nina, looking down and playing with the hem of her shirt. “We were afraid, felt cursed, we were alone. When I got pregnant and everything happened with Herrick, something changed for both of us. We were able to reconcile ourselves to the wolf, but it happened because of different things.”

“What things?”

“I had Eve,” said Nina. “She was inside me, she saved me, you know that. It felt good, being so connected to her. Being a wolf wasn’t so bad.”

“But not now?” he asked.

“See, you managed to learn to like your wolf,” said Nina. “It’s weird, but not bad. Me, I couldn’t do that. I lost that when Eve was born. I love her and you and our life and our family, but there’s always a part of me that yearns to be free of all this.”

“There are times I don’t like this much either,” said George. “The blinding pain parts aren’t exactly a holiday.”

“No, they’re not,” agreed Nina. “It’s not that though, not the normal hatred of being a werewolf. It’s the constant moral ambiguity.”

“Ah,” said George, because that definitely sounded like Nina. “Right, but I don’t see how being more of a werewolf will help.”

“It will help knowing I have some kind of choice,” she said, looking at him. “It will help knowing I’m fighting for something and that I can fight how and when I want to.”

George didn’t know what to say to that. He still thought the dangers far outweighed any benefits. He also knew it wasn’t their main issue right now. George would not be able to fully understand Nina on the subject, it seemed. Even though they had both gone through the same ordeal, it had affected them very differently and now George was his wolf and even though he didn’t have control of it while he was transformed, he was fairly cognizant of what happened while he was and he felt like his wolf made the choices George himself would have made. It was fairly metaphysical and impossible, but then, so was being a werewolf to begin with.

Nina had just never achieved that or thought she had but it was really Eve.

“Why don’t we talk about this more often?” he asked.

Nina gave him a half smile.

“Probably should. It’s just something I don’t like to dwell on. It’s okay, George, the life we live. I would even say it’s wonderful. A little fatalistic depression seems a fair exchange.”

“But you’re not alone, Nina,” said George.

“Nope,” she said, hugging him. “Not even when I want to be.”

“You can talk to me any time,” he whispered into her hair. “After all, you were starting to sound Mitchell-esque.”

“You take that back,” she said, laughing.

“I’m afraid it’s out there forever now,” said George. “It’s all your fault, as well.”

“Maybe, but I’m not the person who brought Mitchell into my life,” said Nina. “Now, come on, you’re probably hungry and we’ve got a siege to withstand.”

“Oh yeah, fun day!” said George, letting her lead him up the stairs.

It was in fact the kind of day to give George nightmares, but he didn’t have time to fall apart. Vampires were so inconsiderate and George ought to know, he’d lived with one for the past eight years.

***

It was a rather long rest of the day and Nina focused her attention on entertaining Eve who was starting to become quite restless and annoyed at the change in her routine. She’d had three meltdowns so far and Nina was running out of things to distract her. She would have tried to have someone else take over, but Eve was also being extremely clingy. Apart from the obvious fact there were strangers outside of her house and her family was all acting weird, Nina thought it seemed like Eve could sense someone was trying to take her away and she was sticking as close as she could. Maybe it wasn’t that and Eve was just having a strange day, but if so, she was simply joining the club.

After they had all had something to eat and Mitchell was awake and researching again, Nina sat with Eve on her lap while Annie played a game with her. George and Tom were taking catnaps on the floor.

Tom was a bit festooned with weapons for Nina’s liking, but she couldn’t really blame him. In fact she currently had a stake shoved into the lining of her pants and it was fairly uncomfortable when she forgot and leaned back. 

George kept jerking awake and anxiously patrolling the house but Nina thought he was probably going to get some rest, which was good because she knew she’d have to go to bed with Eve at her normal time, provided tonight was the same as last night.

“What the hell?” Mitchell suddenly yelled, turning a page and leaping up. “George, George!”

Eve was startled and squeaked in surprise. Nina sent Mitchell a glare, but he was too excited to notice.

“Not my da-” George yelled, lurching upright. “What? What?”

“Read this, read this,” said Mitchell, practically hauling George across the room to his books. “Does it say what I think it says?”

George peered carefully, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Nina and Annie watched in anticipation of his response.

“No,” said George, deflating. “It’s more of the same, though I do think it means that if a werewolf is bitten by the War Child they will only be able to bite others and transmit the werewolf curse/improvements…” George used his fingers for air quotes around the word improvements and Nina rolled her eyes, “…when they are in the wolf form.”

“That’s something,” said Annie.

“But we don’t know what they really want with her,” said Mitchell, slamming his palm down on the table. “This part about the deliverance of the dead to life is driving me up the bloody wall!”

“Hush,” said Nina severely.

Eve was gripping Nina’s leg so hard Nina was sure she’d have a bruise in the morning. Mitchell looked and bowed his head.

“Sorry, Nina.” He came over, knelt down, and stuck his head sideways so he could look at Eve cuddling into Nina’s side. “And, Miss Eve, I’m sorry. You all right, sweetheart?”

Eve shook her head and reached out her hand and put it in Mitchell’s hair. For whatever reason Eve had loved playing with Mitchell’s hair from day one and he had often joked that it was good he was immortal or he’d go bald. What that really had to do with it, Nina didn’t know.

Mitchell opened his arms and, after a moment’s hesitation, Eve went into them and clung to his shoulder so she could play with his hair.

“I think,” Nina said quietly, “that we need to focus more on how to avoid our current situation rather than what it is the War Child does.”

“You might be right,” said Mitchell. “I think it might be time to retreat on the Annie Express and regroup while they look to find us.”

There was a knock on the door and everyone froze. Tom got to his feet in a smooth motion and grasped a stake, heading for the door. He peeped through the hole and then whipped back fast.

“One man,” he mouthed. “Vampire.”

“More parlay?” asked Annie hopefully.

“Final ultimatum,” said Mitchell in a fatalistic voice.

“Mummy, Mummy,” Eve began to whimper.

Mitchell kissed her head and placed her back in Nina’s arms where she immediately burrowed as far as she could go into Nina’s neck.

Nina felt one moment of frozen fear before she cast that aside for determination. They would pry Eve away from her only if they did it from her dead arms. A likely ending to the story, yes, but still the only failure Nina would accept.

“What do you want?” asked Mitchell, speaking loudly.

Nina felt like asking him if he really didn’t know, but she knew what he was doing so she kept silent.

“This is the final warning, John,” came a man’s voice. “Give us the War Child or I will kill every single person in that room, man, woman, child, wolf, vampire, and ghost.”

“That’d be impressive,” said Annie quietly.

“You have five minutes,” said the man.

“They’re gathering,” said Tom from a window.

“What do we do, Mitchell?” asked George, like he was going to panic. “What the hell do we do?”

Mitchell didn’t seem to have an answer and neither did Nina.

***

George panicked for a bit, it was true. It was his automatic fall back plan, but he’d learned a lot about how to put others first since Eve came into his life and he wasn’t going to let his own failings ruin something for her.

“We fight,” said Tom as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which George supposed it was at this point.

The door shuddered under blows and the sound of glass breaking came from upstairs.

“That was never five minutes just now,” said Annie, as if horrified the vampires weren’t keeping their word.

“Focus, Annie,” snapped Nina. “You’re not fighting, you’re taking Eve and you’re leaving.”

Annie looked like she wanted to argue, but how could she argue with that? George’s only amendment would have been for Annie to take Nina as well, but he wasn’t going to try and make up her mind for her. They’d faced death together often enough for George to know when she’d made up her mind.

The door shuddered again.

“I will,” said Annie. “I will, but I’ll be right back for the rest of you.”

Her voice trembled and she held out her hands for Eve. Nina kissed Eve’s head and tried to pass her over, but Eve put up a fuss, obviously scared.

“No! No!” she screamed.

“Baby, it’s okay,” said George.

There was a vast hole in the door now and George could hear the sound of boots on the stairs.

“No!” screamed Eve again.

“Just come with us,” said Annie finally.

Nina nodded and turned to George. He gave her his best smile. There wasn’t much else he could do. There weren’t words in a final moment like this that said anything but what should have been said every day for as long as he’d known her. He’d failed many days, but he’d passed enough of them that she knew. He knew she knew.

Annie put her hands out to touch Eve and Nina and then suddenly fell to the floor screaming. 

“Annie!” Mitchell yelled, abandoning his watch on the front door as it caved in and four men bounded through.

George was vastly confused, what was happening? What could possibly hurt Annie who was so scarily powerful she frightened George on a daily basis? He looked closer and he could see faded human-like forms hovering over her, attacking her.

Someone at the door shouted something and then vampires came in through the door as well. Somewhere in George’s brain he was confused about how they’d gotten inside when they hadn’t been invited, but there was too much going on for him to stay on that particular problem.

“Get to the basement,” Tom yelled to Nina and shoved George that direction as well.

Tom bent underneath the blow of the first man and drove a stake through the heart on his way back up. 

Annie was still screaming and Mitchell was on his knees next to her, clearly trying to figure out why. 

George looked both ways, Nina was already halfway to the stairs and three more people were coming in from the kitchen and the upstairs hallway.

George backed towards the basement, his heart breaking in two to leave Mitchell and Annie, and Tom. But if he was going to be anywhere, it was going to be with Nina and Eve.

Two of the vampires headed straight for Eve and Nina and George tackled one as it went past, grabbing for the stake Tom had equipped him with.

The second vampire laid a hand on Nina’s arm, hauling her short. She fumbled for her stake, but her arms were full with Eve. Suddenly the vampire yelled and brought his hand back from where Eve had just bitten him. Everyone in the room stopped for a moment, except Annie on the floor, her screams much more quiet now. The bitten vampire stood still and then began to shake. A dark cloud began to stream from his eyes and mouth and he shook more violently. He fell to his knees and the cloud began to dissipate. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor.

There was a strange shared moment of shock before reality crashed in again and George remembered he had just tackled a vampire. He stabbed wildly wherever he could reach and blood splattered his face while the vampire howled in pain and slammed an elbow into George’s nose.

A blinding white light filled George’s eyes and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He dropped to the ground and with his last bit of strength stabbed his stake again. There was a popping sound and a strange gurgling and he looked up, his sight coming back again.

The vampire he was grappling with was fountaining blood from the chest region and one of his boots had just finished kicking George in the chest. 

Tom was fighting two vampires by the front door. The sound of cracking bones filled the air and before long Tom as a wolf was tearing into the vampires and humans surrounding him. 

Annie was rising to her feet while Mitchell fended off two men approaching her. Annie’s eyes began to glow and a wind picked up around her.

“Not in my house,” she yelled and there was a cold flash through the air.

George looked frantically for Nina and Eve, but he couldn’t see them. He scrambled to his feet and then almost fell over again at the rush of pain to his head. He couldn’t think straight but he had to find Nina.

“George!” yelled Mitchell from behind him and George turned, barely ducking a punch thrown at him. 

He felt sick and wanted nothing more than to fall to the ground and lie there quietly. Instead he used that desire for gravity to launch himself into the woman who’d just attempted to knock him down. She was tiny and, though he wasn’t a good fighter, he was large and she stumbled back, smacking her head against the wall.

George went to his knees and thought he’d never get back up again. Black spots were in his vision.

He pressed on and lurched toward the basement doorway. Eve and Nina weren’t there, he could see all the way down into the cell and they weren’t there. Fear bubbled in his gut, mixing with the pain, and he turned, searching.

The wolf Tom howled and George felt even sicker at the body parts flying around.

It was cold, way colder than he should have felt, and he blamed Annie for that. Mitchell loomed out of nowhere and took George’s weight just before he fell. Mitchell was gushing blood from his forehead.

“You okay, mate?” Mitchell asked.

“Where’s Nina?” George croaked out. Mitchell got that look on his face that said he really didn’t want to tell George something and George didn’t like that one bit. “Where’s my daughter?” he said, louder, but it was incredibly hard to talk.

“We are away,” said a loud voice from the kitchen, it sounded like that horrible Snow vampire.

Instantly the vampires broke off and ran fast from the house, the humans were slower to follow and there were more injuries among them. Tom chased them and then swung back around, coming toward Mitchell and George, growling.

“Uh, Tom,” said Mitchell nervously. “Tom, it’s us. We’re mates, not food.”

Tom didn’t back off, his snarling just as real.

“Annie,” said Mitchell. “Help, luv.”

Annie turned toward them, her whole form wrapped in an iridescent glow.

“Shh,” she said, and swung her arm towards her left. The windows shattered and the wolf jumped back, surprised. He paused and watched with George and Mitchell as Annie’s light flickered and faded. The wolf sat back and laid his head on his paws, an apology whimper if there ever was one in its mouth. “There’s Tom,” said Annie.

She swayed slightly and Mitchell moved forward, but George started to topple so he stopped his movement.

“You okay, love?” Mitchell asked.

“Fine,” said Annie, her voice bitter. “Those two-bit vampires decided to raise an army of ghosts to attack me. I almost feel sorry for them. Not a decent one in the bunch, but more than I’ve ever seen at one time. It took me a moment to find my bearings. Are you two okay? George, your nose.”

“Broken to pieces, I’m sure,” George attempted to say, but it came out garbled and bloody.

Tom the wolf ran behind the sofa and then there came the sounds of transformation.

“They got them, didn’t they?” Annie whispered and rent-a-ghosted out and then back quickly. “They’re not here, Nina and Eve. It’s my fault.”

“Annie, they planned for you,” said Mitchell. “We’ll get them back.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tom as he stood up, thankfully mostly covered by a tall chair. “The heat of battle like. It just was hard to-”

“We know,” growled George, unable to really focus on anything other than the fact that his wife and daughter were now in the hands of sadistic vampires.

“Okay, we’ll go get them,” said Annie. “Where do we start?”

“I know where to start,” said Mitchell and, after depositing George onto the couch while Annie looked at his nose, made his way over to the one remaining enemy in the room that wasn’t clearly dead or torn apart.

“Is he alive?” asked Tom.

Mitchell bent over him and then started back, swearing in shock.

“He’s actually alive,” Mitchell said.

“What you mean?” asked Tom, wrapping a blanket off the couch around himself and walking over.

Mitchell turned and faced George and Annie.

“Eve’s bite turned him human.”


	8. Chapter 8

Nina sat in a hard chair with Eve on her lap. She couldn’t say for sure where she was, but it was in a large, open space and it was freezing. Since it had been so hot out lately it was actually a nice change, but she worried for Eve who was in her pajamas. The room was dark as well, not so dark she couldn’t see, but dark enough that she wasn’t sure how many vampires were actually in the room with her.

She might question exactly why she wasn’t bound and why Eve had been allowed to remain with her, but she didn’t because it was obvious the vampires were afraid of Eve. Nina had no clue what had happened when Eve had bitten that vampire at the house, but it was visually impressive and had certainly made an impression on the vampires. They would have to fight both of them to get Eve away from Nina and clearly none of them wanted to risk their erstwhile comrade’s fate.

Nina tried not to think about what was going on but focused on soothing Eve’s crying and rubbing her head. Eventually Eve’s crying ebbed out and eased into sleep as the exhausted child finally couldn’t keep hold of consciousness any longer. Nina wondered if whatever it was she did took something out of Eve each time. But now that Eve was asleep, Nina began to try and figure out exactly what she could do. 

She couldn’t think of anything. She was alone with a child and she had no means of communication and nowhere to hide or run. She didn’t even know where she was though since it had only taken them a short while to get there, she imagined they weren’t too far from the house.

All she could do was listen. She may not be as in tune with her wolf as George was but she had the enhanced senses of a werewolf and she focused on hearing whatever she could pick up from the vampires.

It was mostly nothing. They didn’t appear to be keen talkers, but about half an hour after Nina had started actively listening, the vampire who had grabbed her and Eve came into the room, followed by their leader, Snow, Mitchell had called him.

“How is our guest?” Snow asked in a low voice and Nina had to strain to understand.

“Kid’s sleeping now, betcha,” said the voice of a young girl, that little girl vampire Mitchell had called Hetty.

“Nothing to report,” said another vampire.

“Then we must act quickly,” said Snow. “The ghost will have recovered entirely by now and though I’ve set up wards, we have exhausted the spiritual resources in these parts.”

“Why’d you go and waste those?” Hetty asked nonchalantly.

“Finding a ghost who had previously lived in that house who could invite us in and making sure their ghost did not interfere was the only way we could have acquired the child so quickly,” Snow said sharply. “You are aware of that.”

“Yeah, I know, but you still haven’t been forthcoming with why,” said Hetty.

“We have no secrets here,” said Snow.

“I know that,” said Hetty, “but do they?”

There was some distant grumbling too distorted for Nina to make out.

“My friends, this is neither the time nor the place,” said Snow. “We shall reveal all at the proper time. The question becomes, how to deal with the immediate threat.”

“Just kill it,” said a voice and Nina stiffened.

“Why ever would I do that?” asked Snow.

“She’s a threat. You saw what she did to Kione.”

“A remarkable demonstration, but it changes nothing,” Snow replied.

“She could destroy everything!” came a different voice.

“She could be the very answer we crave,” said Snow.

“Maybe she’ll turn you,” said Hetty in a mocking tone. “Others better than you have lost control of weapons before.”

“I have it all under control and I will not lose it, Hetty, thank you,” said Snow sternly. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter any further. What I do wish to discuss is how we will vacate this place.”

“It’s still dark out,” said someone, almost reluctantly. “We have the vans ready for the docks, arrangements are all made.”

“Excellent,” said Snow. “Thank you for your efforts.”

“I still say we ought to kill her here and now,” mumbled someone else.

There was a sharp cracking sound and then a faint cry before something thumped to the ground.

Nina covered Eve’s ears and turned away just in case.

“Does anyone else object to the common good?” asked Snow.

There was silence and Nina guessed Snow had certainly won that round. His words intrigued her though because it obviously meant his plans for Eve extended beyond getting rid of a possible threat. Nina didn’t know what for, but she was automatically against it.

There was the almost silent clicking of shoes and then Snow appeared in Nina’s limited vision.

“What do you want?” she asked tartly as there was no point in pretending he wasn’t there.

“We shall be moving in ten minute’s time,” said Snow. “Please make sure Eve is comfortably secure and everything will move very pleasantly.”

“Why should I?” asked Nina.

“Because,” Snow said, smiling, “it is convenient to have you here for comfort, but I could just as easily shoot you and I do have humans in my employ who could carry the child. Even were she to bite them, the different directions of that bite would serve my purpose.”

“I obviously don’t speak evil, so do you mind translating that for me?” asked Nina.

“If she bites them and nothing happens, I’ve lost nothing, if she bites them and they become werewolves, I simply have new and better servants.”

Nina sucked in the air behind her teeth, beginning to understand.

“The vampire she bit,” she said, “you don’t care.”

“So long as she does not bite me, she is powerful leverage,” said Snow. “The War Child shall make my weapons of war.”

“She’s a child only, plain and simple,” said Nina. “You are a monster.”

“So are you, my dear,” said Snow, walking away. “So are you.”

Nina couldn’t exactly argue with that, but her brain began to work overtime, trying to figure out how she could use the information she’d observed to her advantage. Clearly the vampires weren’t all on the same page. Most of them viewed Eve as a threat to be eliminated and had probably been taught nothing but that according to Mitchell. The higher ups clearly had a different purpose in mind for Eve, their own weapon, to punish those of their own ranks and make others to control. It was sickening. Maybe Hetty didn’t want that and was that why she was not supporting Snow?

Nina didn’t have time to think about it for very long. There was a vast explosion close by and Nina rocked in her chair, clutching Eve to her, covering her ears. Her own ears rang and bits of plaster fell from the ceiling but Nina’s lips curved up.

“Bless Tom and his home-made bombs,” she said, preparing to move. 

***

George kept his eyes on the road, but he wanted to look back at Mitchell and Tom in the back seat. Tom was holding something massive in his lap and George made himself drive slowly because it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they were all blown to kingdom come at the moment.

Annie kept flitting in and out of the front seat which was as distracting as hell, but she was scouting ahead to figure out where they were supposed to go.

Mitchell and Tom had been pretty persuasive and the vampire-turned-human they’d left chained up in the barn had really not had much of a choice about giving up where his vampire overlords were. The only problem was figuring out exactly what he meant by the warehouse off the dirt road outside of town. There were a lot of warehouses outside the city.

“Do you think if a vampire bit him he’d go vamp again?” Tom asked Mitchell.

“I don’t know,” said Mitchell. “It still doesn’t seem possible at all.”

“It took Tom weeks to change,” said George. “Why’d that happen so fast?”

Mitchell shrugged.

“Maybe cause Tom’s thing is tied to the moon and it needed that to trigger the change. Vampires are made relatively right away, guess it can be taken away just as easily.”

“Right, likely enough,” agreed Tom.

“He seemed fine,” said Mitchell, almost as if he was talking to himself. “He was just human again, same age and everything. Do you think he’ll start aging normally and then die an old man?”

“Why not?” asked George. “No wonder the vampires are so bloody petrified.”

“It’s unthinkable,” said Mitchell, his tone suggesting very much that he was thinking about it.

George had the flitting thought that maybe it would be something Mitchell actually wanted before he suddenly swore and jumped.

Annie had popped back into the car again.

“We’re two minutes out,” she said. “Follow my finger, George.”

George sighed, but did as she asked.

Soon enough they were parked close enough to make a quick getaway and far enough that they wouldn’t be spotted right away. At least George hoped that was the case.

He, Mitchell, and Tom huddled against the side of the warehouse, waiting for Annie.

She rent-a-ghosted beside them. 

“I don’t sense any other ghosts,” she said, “so I’ll find Nina and Eve and get them out. Tom, give me a distraction.”

Tom smiled.

“Got just the one.”

“This can’t just be a smash and grab job,” said Mitchell. “They’ll keep coming unless we kill them all. This is the first time I’ve seen all the Old Ones gathered in one place in a century.”

“Cut off the head of the snake it is then,” said George, not minding the idea at all. 

He was just angry enough to wish he could be a wolf right now and tear into the fiends who had taken his family.

“Stay here then,” said Annie and left to do more reconnaissance. When she returned she looked optimistic as only Annie could. “Okay, distraction in front,” she said, pointing. “I will go in the back. Buy me time and then run like hell before the big finale. Got it?”

“You make a fine general, love,” said Mitchell and Annie broke into a most unmilitary like grin.

“I’ll be happy to demonstrate more of my abilities later, soldier,” she said and disappeared.

George tried not to roll his eyes but he really had no control over it anymore.

He and Mitchell waited to the side while Tom set off his distraction and then ran through the smoke and debris inside.

George’s nose ached like anything and it was hard to breathe, not just because of his nose but because he was pretty sure at least one of his ribs was already cracked.

None of that really mattered as his adrenaline took over and he swung his stake at the first thing that ran up to him in the chaos.

To his right Mitchell was fighting and Tom was elsewhere. George shoved his shoulder into the vampire, grateful Tom had taught them all some fighting tips.

He couldn’t see very well and he tried to rely more on his other senses so he instinctively ducked and avoided being punched by someone else sneaking up behind him. George threw himself to the left and the vampire attacking him tripped over a body on the floor. George flung himself on top of him, staking him.

A sudden scream split through the air and George knew that somewhere Tom was transforming.

***

“Take us out of here now and I love you,” Nina said. She had never been so glad to see Annie in her life.

Annie smiled and reached out her hands.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Hetty’s voice.

Annie turned and Nina saw the little girl standing ten yards away.

“Why not?” asked Annie.

“Snow has set up wards. If you try your ghostly trick, you won’t make it out, you’ll get shredded.”

“You’re likely lying,” said Nina.

“Likely,” said Hetty, “but you see, I like this world the way it is. There needs to be conflict and balance and all that other crap.”

“So you want to help us?” asked Annie sarcastically.

“Goodness no,” said Hetty. “Like I told Mitchell before, your child knows not friend from foe, so keep him away from her, okay? In the meantime, I’m leaving and I suggest you do the same. Only exit this room first before the actual exit.” 

She winked and then was gone.

Nina didn’t have time to think about it.

“Let’s go,” she told Annie.

Annie was standing with her head cocked to the side.

“There is something odd in this room,” Annie said. “I think she was telling the truth.”

“Then let’s get moving,” said Nina, shifting Eve onto her hip.

“Take my hand,” said Annie, and they ran forward together.

There were still vampire guards at the door to the room and Annie waved her hand, smashing them into the opposite wall.

They went through the door and into a room of chaos, smoke and fire and bodies everywhere.

Nina could just make out a few grappling figures in the smoke and the figure of a wolf tearing through the vampires.

Eve woke up and began screaming and Nina tried to comfort her to no avail.

Snow loomed up in front of them and he still somehow managed to look like he was in control of the situation.

“This is unfortunate,” he said. “I see we should not have left any of your friends alive.”

Annie stayed in front of Nina for which Nina was grateful, even if all she wanted was to tear Snow’s heart out.

“You will stay away from my family,” said Annie, “or there won’t be a corner of the globe you can hide from me.”

Nina opened her mouth to say something but she was suddenly outside, standing next to their car, holding Eve, who was still wailing.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” asked Nina, her moral compass not having any issues with the idea at all, which should have been frightening to her but wasn’t.

“He’ll get his, I promise. Got to nip in for the boys now.” Annie smiled viciously.

She disappeared again and returned with a fallen-on-his-knees-and-dripping-blood-from-his-nose George and a one-arm-raised-in-attack-and-stake-sticking-out-of-his-leg Mitchell.

Eve was still crying but Nina dropped to her knees anyway and hugged George with one arm as best as she could.

“Are you okay?” he asked, clinging to her and getting blood absolutely everywhere.

“What about Tom?” Nina heard Mitchell ask. “He’s only got about ten seconds.”

“Get in the car,” Annie said and vanished.

Mitchell hoisted Nina to her feet and shoved her toward the car. He put an arm under George and dragged him as well.

Annie and a naked Tom rent-a-ghosted into the back seat while Mitchell hastily got into the driver seat, swearing as he put his injured leg on the pedal.

Nina sat next to him on the front seat, holding Eve, and putting her hand back behind her to grasp George’s.

Mitchell peeled out and a second later a glorious explosion lit the sky behind them and Nina watched with satisfaction as the entire warehouse went up in flames.

The heat from the blast slammed into the back of the car and Mitchell yanked the gear shift back and accelerated as fast as he could away from the bits of burning debris falling all around them.

“We need the hospital,” said Nina quietly.

“I’m going to the one in the next town,” said Mitchell. “Too many questions.”

“Ever the secretive bastard,” said Nina fondly.

“You know me so well,” said Mitchell, swearing again as he dodged around a bit of burning wall.

Nina sat back and Eve finally quieted a bit and looked up at her.

“Safe?” she asked.

“Baby, we are safe,” said Nina. “Daddy and you and me are safe.”

“Unca John?” asked Eve, perking up a bit.

“Right here, darling,” said Mitchell.

“Annie Annie?” asked Eve.

“Never better, sweetheart,” replied Annie from the back seat.

“Unca T?”

“Here,” said Tom like he was in school.

Nina sighed. Yes, they were all there and they were all safe.


	9. Chapter 9

George did not like the parts of his adventures when he was in hospital. Even if it wasn’t him being treated, they were still one of his least favorite places to be. He’d often reflected on the matter and decided that even if Mitchell hadn’t urged him to give teaching another go, he wouldn’t have been able to cope still being a porter and walking the florescent, smelly halls for a living.

He straightened the ridiculous gown he was being forced to wear and tried not to think about breathing. Somehow, it didn’t quite work. His broken nose and cracked rib was apparently the worst combination to have when one wanted to keep breathing. The doctor had looked at him and tsked as if George had somehow done it on purpose. He wasn’t quite sure exactly what had been done to treat him as he hadn’t really being paying attention at the time the doctors explained it all. He’d been too busy being in pain.

Everything else was a bit of a blur as well, if he was being honest. He remembered getting into the car and holding Nina’s hand tightly, thinking of nothing but her and Eve being safe. He must have blacked out at that point because he was violently shaken awake later when Mitchell insisted on getting everyone out of the car and then smashing it into a tree in the side of the road to simulate a car accident.

After the ambulance had arrived Mitchell had cooked up some story about him, George, and Tom driving back from a lad’s night out and swerving to avoid an animal on the road.

Annie took Nina and Eve and joined them at the hospital, but George had only been told that later when Nina was finally allowed in to see him. She climbed up on the bed with him after reading his chart thoroughly and sat against his unbruised side.

“Where’s Eve?” he asked hoarsely, his voice sounding strange to him.

“Annie has her,” Nina said. “She’s just outside but I thought she might get frightened of your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” asked George indignantly.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s covered in gauze and some bloodstains and the black and blue is started to cover your eyes like you were descended from raccoons,” Nina said.

“Oh,” said George. “Our girl’s been through enough anyway.” He still longed to hold her and see her.

“Agreed,” said Nina, “absolutely agreed.”

“Will she be okay?” George said, voicing his greatest fear. “Have we scarred her for life?”

“We showed her we’ll never abandon her,” said Nina fiercely. “It’s more than some children get.”

There was too much in her tone for George not to guess where her mind had just gone and he ached to think about what she’d gone through.

George tilted her chin up.

“You are not alone, Nina. You turned out wonderful and you are the best mother.”

“Thank you,” Nina said, burying her face in his neck.

“Are you okay?” George asked next. “Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head against him.

“No, some bruises from when they grabbed us, but it’s nothing.”

“What now?” he asked.

“Hopefully you’ll get released soon,” she said. “Tom’s already out because all he had was some cuts and bruises and was extremely tired from shifting so many times. I think he needs to sleep for a week.”

“And Mitchell?”

“Well,” Nina said, “he had a giant hole in his leg and a gash on the head. He lost a lot of blood and I think he’s…hungry.”

“Where is he?” George asked, panicked. “We can’t leave him alone, there’re humans here; what if he loses control? What if they see he’s a vampire?”

“Tom went out with him after they were released,” said Nina, “and I promised Annie that as soon as I’d seen you were okay, I’d take Eve and she’d go to him.”

“Then go, go,” said George. “I’m fine and now I’ve seen you’re fine. But we can’t let him, Nina, we promised him. He has to stay-”

Nina shook her head, but George didn’t think she was upset.

“Maybe…maybe he won’t have to stay this way,” she said. “Maybe there’s a way for him to be at peace.”

George didn’t get it for a minute and then it dawned on him.

“Eve…” he breathed out.

“Our Eve,” said Nina.

George didn’t know what to think of it. He’d seen it with his own eyes, a vampire drained of the dark inside, suddenly human, with no apparent side effects, finally rid of the hunger that had plagued it, whether it liked being plagued or not.

Mitchell had been struggling for so long, for more years than George had been alive, and now maybe George could finally give him the gift of peace. The thought scared him to death, but it was an intriguing idea.

But for now, Mitchell was out there, battling, with only Tom there. What Mitchell needed now was Annie, so George would make sure he got her.

Nina got off the bed and kissed George’s hand.

“Find out when I can leave,” said George.

“It’s over now, George,” said Nina. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed,” snapped George and settled back into his bed, closing his eyes against Nina’s laughter.

Relax. He had a broken nose and a cracked rib and she wanted him to relax. Sure, easy as pie. Only he did have morphine dripping through his veins…relax, well, maybe he could get there. 

***

Nina held Eve until she fell asleep. She had cried off and on for hours and Nina did worry that she might be irreversibly damaged. She couldn’t help it for all that she didn’t want to think about it. Eve’s life would never be easy. As hard as Nina and George had tried to shield her and had been relieved she wouldn’t have to go through the trauma they did every month, Eve was already exposed to the supernatural and heavily linked to it. Now that Nina knew Eve had this gift, ability, curse, whatever it could be called, she knew it would only be harder for Eve in the long run. 

When did they tell her she was the fabled War Child, at what age would that be appropriate? Should they encourage her to never tell anyone and hide from the world or should she rise up as some kind of underground werewolf’s rights champion? It was all ridiculous and Nina knew she was borrowing trouble, yet it was hard not to after the events of the past few days. No matter what, Eve was going to face some hard decisions in her life and Nina would have to face them first.

Nina did know that all of them would do their best to support and love and encourage Eve and that could cover a lot of damage. Children were incredibly resilient and Nina had often wondered what she would have been like had she been taken away from her mother sooner rather than later.

Eve looked at peace now, wrapped in a hospital blanket with one hand curled up under her chin. Nina was so proud of her. She carried her into George’s room, where he was sleeping under the influence of drugs and laid her down carefully on the rather cushy window seat. Eve didn’t stir, a sure sign that she was exhausted in every way.

There was a slight rapping on the door and Nina looked up to see Tom standing there.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Nina said, walking to the door and keeping her voice soft, not wanting to wake either of the two sleepers.

“I can wait here, like,” said Tom. “You need some kind of break.”

“Thank you, Tom,” said Nina, because she truly did. “I would like to freshen up slightly. Where are Mitchell and Annie?” Tom shifted, guilt in his posture. Nina’s eyes narrowed. “Where, Tom?”

“He needed blood,” said Tom. “He won’t heal without it.”

“So?”

“So, I nicked some.”

“The bags of blood don’t work, Mitchell’s told me that,” said Nina.

Tom looked over her shoulder, avoiding her eyes.

“There were a blood drive outside. Got it right out of the vein, sort of,” he said. “Seemed to do the trick.”

Nina sighed but she honestly didn’t know if there was a better solution. Mitchell had now tasted blood when he’d been clean for so long, but better that than him either dying or finally snapping and draining an innocent person.

“I guess that works,” she said. “Now he’ll get all broody.”

“That’s the downside,” Tom said soberly and Nina almost laughed at his earnest expression.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said and headed down the hall.

There was a bathroom close by and Nina spent some time getting cleaned up. When she wandered back by George’s room Tom had now joined the sleeping duo in their slumber and was sitting on the window seat with Eve curled into his side.

Nina wasn’t worried about them, the threat was over and Annie had grimly announced in the car that with the possible exception of Hetty, not one vampire had escaped the explosion. It didn’t appear that Hetty was a threat either, at least not more than a normal vampire, so Nina felt safe taking a bit of a walk and stretching her legs.

Her walk brought her to the end of the hall and a room that currently housed a pacing Mitchell and a stubborn Annie.

“What if someone had needed-” Mitchell broke off mid rant when he saw Nina in the doorway.

“Bemoaning the fact you’ve been saved again?” Nina asked, keeping her tone casual.

“Well, now I’ve got the taste again,” said Mitchell, glaring at her. “It’s singing in my veins, Nina, and I’m bloody tired.”

“Aren’t we all?” she replied, not really expecting an answer.

Annie took her hands off her hips and pulled Mitchell to sit on the bed, laying her head on his shoulder.

“No one got hurt, Mitchell,” she said. “Instead, we get to have you.”

“Aren’t you precious lucky,” he said bitingly.

“I get to be glad you’re here,” Annie said sharply. “We promised each other we’d survive and we did. You don’t get to regret that.”

“I’m too weak to start over again,” said Mitchell.

“That’s baloney,” said Nina. “You’re the strongest idiot vampire there is, so suck it up and I don’t mean that literally, obviously.”

Mitchell chuckled slightly. 

“Fine, fine. I don’t deserve it, but fine.”

“What would the alternative have been?” asked Annie. “Avoiding the injuries would have been preferable, but you would never have left Nina and Eve captured and you know it.”

“I’m not some sodding noble knight here,” said Mitchell. “I enjoyed the fighting and I enjoyed the violence.”

“Yeah, well, so did I,” said Annie.

“I would have liked a bit of it myself,” said Nina. “A pity I couldn’t join in and tear them all new ones for daring to touch my baby.”

“I give up,” said Mitchell, holding his hands up. “I was always going to give up.”

Annie kissed him and Nina took that as her cue to leave, but she hesitated at the door.

“Things are different now, you know that, right?” she asked.

Mitchell broke away from Annie and he stared at Nina for too long of a moment and she hated the fear and indecision in his gaze.

“Yeah, I know,” he finally said.

Nina didn’t know if that meant he would or wouldn’t want to become human again, but she did know it would have to be his choice.

***

George limped from the car to the door, Mitchell supporting him slightly. It felt like the car was very far away from the house, but it was only a few meters.

“Who fixed the door?” George asked, admiring the handiwork.

“Like I would,” Mitchell scoffed. “That’s Tom for you.”

George nodded as they went inside.

“Looks clean,” he said, surprised and not surprised.

“Well, if you’d gotten here and it wasn’t we’d have had to deal with your moaning,” said Mitchell.

George couldn’t deny it but he glared at Mitchell anyway.

“There is nothing wrong with a clean living area, Mitchell,” he said sternly.

“Of course there isn’t,” said Annie, swooping into the room with a mug of tea in her hands. “Come on in, George, I have the perfect recuperating area all ready for you.”

George and Mitchell exchanged glances before going into the lounge and Mitchell burst out laughing.

There were enough pillows and blankets to make several small forts, vases of flowers on every other available surface, the shades were drawn down to George’s preferences, the remote on the arm of the couch, bowls full of sweets, and _Real Hustle_ was playing on the telly.

“I want some broken ribs,” said Mitchell, hoisting George down onto the sofa.

Annie went straight to work, propping him up with a dozen pillows, making sure the remote and sweets were within his reach, and then bestowed him with the mug of tea before standing back to admire her handiwork.

“Annie, I think you overdid it again,” said George cautiously. 

“Don’t be ungrateful,” said Nina coming into the room, hiding her smile behind her hand.

George shot her a look and she shook her head at him.

“Thanks ever so much, Annie,” he said robotically, even though he really did mean it. 

It was hard not to love Annie’s exuberance and tendency to be extravagant, but it did make life slightly hard to predict at times.

“You’ll love dinner even more,” said Annie and rent-a-ghosted out of the room.

“So, everything back to normal then?” asked George, the most comfortable he’d been since being on the morphine.

He’d been in the hospital for a few days and in that time period Nina informed him that the house was being put back together and Eve’s only discomfort appeared to be that George wasn’t home.

“Right as rain,” said Mitchell.

He was tapping his fingers on his leg incessantly and George filed that away for later meditation. Mitchell had been snippy and impatient on the way back from hospital; more than usual anyway.

“Where’s Eve?” asked George, because, really, seeing his girl was all he wanted at this particular moment.

“Right here,” said Tom, coming into the room with Eve on his back.

“Daddy,” squealed Eve and practically jumped off of Tom’s back.

George braced himself for a lot of pain when Eve pounced on him but Nina caught her before she could.

“What did we say, Eve?” said Nina sternly. “Daddy’s not feeling well and you need to be gentle with him.”

“Sorry, Mummy,” said Eve contritely.

She sedately climbed on the couch and put her arms around George.

“How’s my little girl?” asked George, a tightness he hadn’t know he was still feeling dissipating in his chest.

“You k, Daddy?” she asked him instead.

George smiled and nodded, putting his tea down so he could squeeze her back.

“I’m fine, Eve.”

“Bad men hurt you?” she asked quietly, her eyes downcast.

George locked worried eyes with Nina over Eve’s head. She shrugged, apparently not having the answer.

“Don’t worry about me, love,” said George. He tilted her head up and smiled. She smiled back tentatively. “I’m poorly but the bad men have gone all away and you don’t have to worry about them anymore. We’re all safe now.”

Eve nodded, her face a study in concentration.

“Good,” she said finally, apparently having finished processing. 

George laughed a little and held back a wince as he kissed her head.

“You want to sit and watch some telly with me?” he asked.

Eve nodded enthusiastically and George sighed inwardly with relief.

“Unca John, too,” she said, apparently understanding that this particular program was not complete without Mitchell watching.

Mitchell smiled at her and dropped into the chair opposite them.

“Okay, darling, for a little while.”

“Tom?” asked George.

Tom shrugged and sat down on the floor by the sofa.

Nina rolled her eyes and exited the room.

George was careful not to move too much, but he couldn’t help but look around the room and feel much more satisfied than he should be feeling.

It looked good, no signs that an epic struggle with vampire and werewolf had taken place. Tom did good work. Their home had survived and that was important, the most important thing of all. Maybe Eve had been scarred by the event, but George would do everything in his power to take that fear away.

They had won the day and saved her from the Old Ones and they weren’t coming back.

Mitchell had mentioned in the car that he’d done some reaching out into the supernatural circles and everyone was buzzing about the destruction of the Old Ones. Wherever Hetty was, she was keeping a low profile. She’d have to be added to the list of vampires that George didn’t worry a whole lot about. It was a fairly short list, Daisy being the only other vampire George didn’t think was out to personally get them. She had other issues associated with her though so George didn’t dwell on her. In fact the only vampire he wanted to dwell on was Mitchell.

That didn’t mean Eve was safe forever though. There were still vampires, vampires who didn’t have the knowledge of Eve’s abilities, just brainwashing that convinced them she was evil and needed to be destroyed. Mitchell had been insistent on them having a plan in place for the future in case something like this happened again, safe houses set up around the world and people in place to leave Eve with in case Annie needed to rent-a-ghost her someplace quickly before returning for anyone else. Annie was already determined to practice rent-a-ghosting until she could take all of them in one go and George had no doubt she’d get there fairly soon. They’d all work on their parts.

For now there was just the question of how to process what had happened and George glanced over at Mitchell.

Mitchell, sitting over there, tap tapping away and running his fingers through his hair. It was hot again, the heat wave pressing down on the room despite the fans in the corner. But somehow George didn’t think that the reason Mitchell looked so sweaty was simply the heat.

“You okay, mate?” he asked quietly, knowing Mitchell would hear him.

“We’ll see,” Mitchell said after a minute. 

***

Three months later

Nina straightened up from the chicken coop to see George standing behind her. She smiled at him, but let him make the walk to her rather than meeting him. She rubbed her brow, sweating thankfully from work rather than oppressive heat. Autumn had finally descended on their almost farm and she would far rather deal with torrential downpours and dismal mist than a solid wall of heat.

“Ready to come in for dinner?” George asked.

“Only if I must,” she said. 

“I’ll have you know I cooked tonight and it is going to be delicious,” he said, putting his hand on the small of her back as they walked.

Of course it was, he was an excellent cook, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

“What about those biscuits last week?” she queried in an innocent tone.

George stopped walking and faced her indignantly.

“You know bloody well that was Mitchell’s fault. Annie egged him on as well.”

“Annie did, did she?” asked Nina.

“I don’t know why I bother with you,” he said in a fond tone, putting his arm back around her as they made their way to the house.

“Probably because I bother with you,” she said.

They walked into a kitchen that was violent with noise and chaos. Mitchell was chasing Eve who was chasing Tom who was chasing Annie who was chasing Mitchell around and around the table.

“Is this a house or a circus?” inquired George loudly.

Annie stopped guiltily causing Tom to bump into her and the whole kitchen would have become a massive accident scene if Mitchell hadn’t grabbed Eve before she could crash into Tom.

“We playing trains!” said Eve, not looking put out.

Nina would let her play trains from now until doomsday to keep that happy look on her face. Eve still had occasional nightmares so whenever Nina saw Eve content, she was happy.

“Well, maybe we can keep playing trains after dinner,” said Annie, shooting a look at Nina and jerking her head toward the door. “I’m going to help you wash up, little princess.”

Annie plucked Eve out of Mitchell’s arms and headed out of the room while three male heads watched her in confusion.

“What was that?” asked Mitchell as they all turned to Nina for answers.

Nina took a deep breath. She’d been preparing for this moment all week. She’d already discussed with Annie what she meant to do but hadn’t talked to anyone else. There were moments in life that you couldn’t share with anyone other than your best friend because you needed their biased, yet completely generous advice.

Annie had convinced her she just needed to say it out loud and that would make it real.

“Annie was not so subtly nudging me to make an announcement,” said Nina. George instantly looked worried and she went over to stand next to him, putting her arm through his. “We’ve been through a lot lately and I wanted to wait until we were settled down and knew more about our unique situation to make a decision.”

“What decision?” asked George, but Nina knew that he knew what decision, likely they all did.

“I’ve been monitoring Tom really closely over the past couple of months,” she said. “He’s doing wonderfully, no signs of anything wrong. He can change at will and completely control himself during the change. He still changes at the moon whether he wants to or not. He has more heightened senses and seems to heal faster. It’s quite remarkable.”

“We all know this, Nina,” said Mitchell. “So say it already.”

She met his eyes for a moment and she knew his own decision in that moment.

“I’m going to have Eve bite me,” she said, tensing.

“Brilliant,” said Tom into the thick silence.

Mitchell didn’t say anything but he’d already said it with his eyes.

Nina turned to George who was biting his lip as if it would keep him from exploding.

“George?” she asked.

He still didn’t say anything for a minute and when he spoke he was obviously trying to be more casual than he felt.

“Why-why didn’t you tell me?”

“I only just decided,” she said. “I did tell you, you just weren’t awake to hear it.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “Your decision affects my life, too, Eve’s as well.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s partly why I’m doing this. I know you won’t, George, and that’s okay. You and your wolf have your own arrangement. But people came and took our daughter and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Even if I trained with Tom for years, I wouldn’t be nearly as effective a fighter as I could be as a wolf. I know we won this battle and I think it’s the biggest battle there will be, but there may be others. When the time comes I want to fight. Eve is the War Child and I am her mother and I will use every tool I have to fight that battle.”

George nodded, his face tight, and she put a hand up to wipe away a tear from his eyes.

“I want you to be safe,” he said, his voice cracking. “My Nina.”

She smiled and stepped up on her tip toes to kiss his chin.

“I think I will be. I think we all will be.”

“I understand,” George said. “I knew it would happen, ever since the warehouse. It just…I wanted you to tell me and then I wanted it not to be true because I worry.”

“Truer words never spoken,” said Nina. “Do you forgive me?”

“I’ve been forgiven worse,” he said, smiling through tears. “Of course I do.”

Mitchell and Tom had been busying themselves with the dinner table during this interlude but Nina knew they were listening as hard as they could.

“Shall we continue then?” she asked, inclining her head back toward them.

“When?” asked George, raising his voice to include them in the conversation.

“No time like after dinner,” said Annie, coming back into the room with Eve on her hip. “Then you can rest up. By our calculations the change will set in after the next moon, which isn’t that far away.”

“Our calculations?” said George. “Like you calculated anything.”

“Never underestimate a ghost on a mission,” said Annie. “Now, shall you all consume this delicious meal?”

“One second, love,” said Mitchell, holding out his hand. Annie’s face softened and she nodded, walking forward and taking his hand. “Got a little announcement of my own.”

“I can’t take much more of this bloody revelating,” said George, wiping at his eyes.

Annie tossed him a look and covered Eve’s ears.

Mitchell chuckled.

“Too late, mate. It’s time.” He straightened up. “I had to make the decision about being bitten as well. After all, I’m a walking time bomb and now I’ve had blood again. I have got a chance to be free of it. We’ve been watching Kione on his human journey since he was bit. No side effects either, just a normal human. Granted, he’s in jail under a fake identity for trespassing and attempted burglary, but you know, being treated for delusions of vampirism isn’t so bad considering he doesn’t have to feel the hunger anymore.” His voice actually managed to turn hungry. “To not feel it anymore…”

“So you’re going to do it?” asked George and his voice sounded different to when he spoke about Nina’s being bitten. Nina chose not to feel weird about him wanting Mitchell to change and not her. After all, everything that had happened to any of them had been caused the night Mitchell chose to save George’s life. If George could do anything to repay that debt, she knew he would. “Become human?”

“No,” Mitchell said after a long pause.

George made a strangled noise of surprise but Nina simply smiled a smile of satisfaction and faint regret. She knew why but she was sad for the sacrifice Mitchell was making.

“Why not?” asked Tom, sounding faintly disapproving. He’d always tolerated and then grown to like Mitchell, Nina knew, but Tom would never be fully comfortable around any vampire, no matter how much he liked him. “No choice to see there.”

“None except for the fact that I already have my own War Child,” said Mitchell, swinging Annie’s hand up into the air in illustration. “I have one benefit to this vampire gig and that’s living forever with her. If I give that up…I can’t give her up.”

“You’re sacrificing your mental health for love,” said George, not really questioning it but musing over it.

“If I have to or you all vote that I should,” said Mitchell, “I will. I’ve been a burden around your necks long enough. Five years ago you all agreed to be my sponsors, but I can release you from that debt right now if you want. I can’t deny that I’m a beast in a cage and the only thing stopping me from carnage is this random group of people. It would be the most freeing thing in the world to become human and stop the madness inside me. It wouldn’t be a cure all, I’ve got my own demons and guilt to contend with, but it would be enough to make me feel set free.” Mitchell smiled and turned to Annie. “I could grow old with you, the only trouble is I promised you forever and I’d like to keep my promise if I may.”

“You know what I think,” she said. “I want forever with you but I will sacrifice forever for one lifetime if it would help you.”

“Up to you then,” said Mitchell, turning back to the rest of them.

Nina shook her head and wondered if every event in her life was going to end with Mitchell putting his life into her hands.

“I trust you,” she said. “Shocking, I know, but I do. I once thought you would never be good enough for Annie and I still think that…but the two of you belong together and I don’t want her alone.”

“Not my decision to make,” said Tom, shrugging his shoulders.

George coughed nervously.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, somehow including them all. “I’m thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” said Mitchell.

“For jokes like that you ought to be made human,” muttered George. “Mitchell, you don’t need me to decide these things for you. You know what you want and you need to do it. If you’re willing to face down hell itself to be with Annie then you love her like I love Nina and there’s nothing better than that.”

“Guess I get to be the neighborhood vampire a little while longer,” said Mitchell, and Nina could see a part of him was disappointed and she couldn’t blame him, but he wasn’t backing down and because of that she was proud of him.

Mostly she just couldn’t imagine why Eve hadn’t been interrupting them more, but when she peeked at the tousled head of hair in Annie’s arms, she saw Eve had fallen asleep. Annie winked at Nina over Eve’s head and Nina felt that little twinge of curiosity she got sometimes when she wondered just what Annie didn’t tell them about herself.

Dinner was delicious and Nina made sure to compliment George several times. The conversation flowed easily enough as they discussed George’s students and Annie’s business and Tom’s crush on the girl named Allison he’d met at work and what to plant in the garden come spring and whose job it actually was to feed the pigs.

They didn’t rush through it and Nina sat back after dessert with contentment. This is how she wanted to live her life and it was what she planned on fighting to protect. George turned to her and held out his hand and she took it, letting him lead her into the lounge.

He sat her down and then sat Eve in her lap and they both leaned forward to kiss Eve’s head at the same time, bumping noses.

He met her gaze and offered her his support with a crooked smile and she wasn’t worried anymore about his reaction. He probably would freak out many more times after this, but then again, so might she.

“Eve,” said Nina. “Can you do something for Mummy?”


	10. Epilogue

Thirteen years later

“Are you ready?” George asked, pausing his efforts to put more groceries in the boot of the car.

Nina rolled her eyes and dug her keys out of her pocket.

“You ask me this now?”

“What better time?” he asked. “It’s not like we can put it off any longer.”

“No, we can’t do that,” Nina agreed and didn’t answer his question.

George didn’t push it; after all, neither of them would ever fully be ready. It didn’t really change anything though. They were simply parents, responsible to their child. A child who was no longer a child. Eve was turning eighteen in a few days and they were throwing her a party.

It was going to be bigger than George liked his parties these days. It was funny how much he preferred to just be at home now…not because he was trying to hide who he was from the world, but because it was just nicer being at home than anywhere else. He was comfortably middle-aged and he liked it that way. 

Having Mitchell and Annie home from their globe-trotting experience would be nice and he was looking forward to catching up with them. It was even going to drag Tom and his wife around. In fact, it would probably be a lot of adults at the party. Eve had had a rather singular childhood, George reflected, since none of the couples she’d been raised by could have other children. That’s what came of adopting werewolves, vampires, and ghosts as aunts and uncles.

Once she’d properly entered school she’d been able to make friends and get a social life but too often the family’s secrets had kept her from being as popular as George was sure she could have been. He did slightly regret that, but it wasn’t something any of them could have helped and no one was more fiercely protective of their secret than Eve. She had a devious, scheming streak to her that George was convinced came directly from Mitchell, but she steadfastly stood up for what she thought was right and he knew that was Nina’s influence. Perhaps the only thing she’d really gotten from him was a passion for coasters and clean kitchens, but that was important in his opinion.

Now that she was a grown up and they couldn’t protect her from going out into the world, she needed to be armed with all the information about herself and their family so she could make good decisions. Not that they’d been lying to her all this time, but they’d kept back some of the big things. Eve certainly knew about werewolves and vampires and that she had the ability to change them, but she didn’t know about the prophecy or the battle that had raged over her except as a very distant memory.

“Will she hate us?” George said, getting into the car.

“Maybe,” said Nina, turning the key in the ignition, “but that doesn’t really matter.”

“It matters a little,” George argued.

“Fine,” said Nina. “But my point is that this is the right thing to do no matter the cost to ourselves. Besides, we’ve raised her, George, and love her with everything in us. Eighteen years of happiness is not going to be washed away by something that’s only a tag on the truth anyway. Don’t be a drama queen.”

“Says you,” grumbled George.

“Do I have to wolf out and subdue you?” she asked.

George raised his eyebrow and sputtered a little.

Nina chuckled and reached over her hand to touch his. He grasped her hand and held it tightly, the unspoken words of reassurance passing between them.

When they got home Eve had already decorated half of the house.

“What are you doing, Eve?” Nina demanded. “The birthday girl doesn’t do the work for her own party.”

“I’m just helping,” said Eve. “I would be bored stiff if I didn’t.”

“Then go and grab some of the food from the car,” said George, jerking his head toward the door. 

“Sure, Da,” she said, her old pet name for him falling naturally from her lips.

George couldn’t stop a glow of happiness and then started worrying the very next second.

“Stop it,” said Nina and he glared at her.

It was ridiculous how well she knew him.

They worked together, the three of them, getting as much done for the next day as possible. George had Eve finish putting up the decorations since she had much more of an artistic flair than he would ever have. He busied himself cleaning and putting things away. Nina followed along behind both of them, perfecting and supervising, as she said laughingly.

“When are they coming?” asked Eve, tucking her hair behind her ears, stepping down from the step stool.

“Who knows with them,” said George. “Annie can have them here in two seconds so why not go and look at another landmark?”

“You’re just jealous,” said Eve, popping up on her tip toes to kiss his cheek and barely making it.

She’d definitely got her mother’s height.

“Spot on,” remarked Nina.

“Well, if they’re not here yet, can we talk about what the two of you have been freaking out about for the past month?” said Eve.

George stopped dead and stared at her and she grinned mischievously back.

“What the hell?” he said.

“Come on,” said Eve. “You’re obviously doing some kind of ‘Eve’s an adult now’ talk and I’m dying to find out what it is. Considering the things I already know about this family it’s got to be good.”

“Don’t wish too hard, young lady,” said Nina. She threw down the towel she was drying her hands with and sat down at the table. “Sit down.”

Eve sat down and George pulled up a chair beside Nina, holding her hand.

“Spill,” said Eve, brightly and expectantly.

They spilled, eloquently and fully, and despite the number of times George had practiced this speech over the years, he was surprised at how hard he found it to form words.

It took a while to tell her everything that had happened over the last twenty odd years, the various vampires who had attempted to harm them, the number of werewolves who had tried to get them to have Eve turn them, and she kept interrupting but they were finally done and George desperately needed some water for his dry throat.

“It’s a lot to take in,” said Nina.

“No kidding,” said Eve with all the bluntness of a teenager.

“Are you all right, Princess?” asked George.

Eve’s hands were trembling and she kept staring at them.

“Obviously not, Da,” she said. “I mean, it’s not every day you find out you’re supposed to be some kind of savior or destroyer or whatever.”

“No,” said Nina calmly, but she was gripping George’s hand way too tightly. “But the glory of it is that the choice is yours, Eve. No one but you needs to decide what you do with that information. You can never speak of it again if you want and no one would blame you or question it.”

“I might,” said Eve and she sat there for several quiet minutes. George could practically see her mind racing, sorting through the facts, accepting and processing. “Well,” she said finally, blowing out some air through her teeth, “not much I can do about it tonight.”

“Probably not,” said George.

“Can I ambush everyone else and make them tell me things?” asked Eve.

“All you like,” said George.

Eve nodded and still seemed distracted, which George didn’t blame her for. When she looked back at them, her eyes had tears swimming in them.

“Am I good?” she asked finally. “I mean, can I be good?”

George had never had his heart broken so quickly but it was Nina who got up and put her arms around Eve.

“How dare you suggest otherwise,” Nina said fiercely, then instantly flushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- I just mean… Eve, you are the best good there is.”

“Really?” asked Eve in a small voice.

Nina nodded and smiled.

“I’ve never doubted it for a second.”

“Nor I,” put in George.

“Well, that’s something,” said Eve.

“If I ever hear you doubting yourself like that again, you’ll think the two month’s grounding when you were eleven was child’s play,” Nina said, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Eve laughed a little bit, but she still looked lost when she looked at George and he gaped at her like a fish, hating that he had no good answers for her.

“Maybe we’re the bad ones,” he finally said softly. Eve looked confused. “We didn’t tell you before,” he said. “We brought you into this world and it’s our job to protect you.”

“Useless,” Eve said, her joke falling flat. She shook her head and held out a hand to George who took it. “No, maybe we’re all just who we are.”

“Sounds very wise to me,” said Nina, stepping back and putting her hands on Eve’s shoulder, looking her in the eyes. “You are Eve Anne Sands-Pickering and you are loved and you will figure this out.”

“Whatever you say, Mum,” said Eve. “I think I need a minute,” she said, standing up. “I’ll go and feed the pigs, okay? Come and get me if they arrive before I get back.”

George watched her go and he turned to Nina, whispering quickly.

“Do we let her go? Will she be okay? What do we do?”

“We let her go and sort things out,” said Nina, her lips pinched together.

“I hate that,” said George.

“Oh, me, too,” said Nina.

“I’m proud of her,” said George.

“Oh, me, too,” said Nina, leaning against him.

They walked to the window and watched their daughter cross the yard as if towards a new life, which path she would take exactly was uncertain, but George had no doubt that she would choose the perfect path, even if it took her a little while to get there.


End file.
